


Razor's Edge

by Tyellas



Series: Lab T-4 [22]
Category: Hellboy - All Media Types, The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Action, Canon Genderbending, Contemplation, Crossover, Dmitri lives!, Drama, Drinking & Talking, Eldritch Buddy Cops, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Gen, Giles crushing on Dmitri, Hoffstetler Lives, Hope vs. Despair, Horror, Lovecraftian, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Magical Realism, Other, Post-Canon, Psychological Horror, Revenge, Romance, Science, Slice of Life, Step-Sibling Incest, Teratophilia, Water Sex, but you should know, here for Hellboy crossover chapters 2 6 and 9, that warning there is for off-camera activity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-04-26 15:40:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14405238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: Stories from the edge ofThe Shape of Water– side characters, crossovers, and oddments.In this update:The wrong man- After that momentous night at the quarry and on the docks, Dmitri lives! Giles goes to visit him in the hospital, and finds himself in the grip of another crush on a strong, wicked man. A man who’d kill a guard for the sake of Elisa’s creature.





	1. The Razor's Edge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aldebaran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aldebaran/gifts).



> Extras and oddments from the bottom of my TSOW bait bucket. The weird stuff: crossovers, side characters, original characters, magical realism, stories-sparked-by-that-other-story, posted in case one reader likes them.

One of these days, Sally promised herself, she was going to write a book. 

Yes, she would. A tell-all about what she’d seen as a high-military-clearance secretary. She’d supported the codebreakers during WWII. She’d spent years at Roswell. Her work here at Occam Aerospace Laboratory would wrap it up nicely. 

The idea of the book kept Sally going during bad times. Like right now, working for Colonel Richard Strickland. This midnight-day, Sally was perched at her desk, a bundle of nerves. She forced herself to not look as she heard Strickland reorganizing his own desk for the fifth time that day. 

Sally saw this all the time with the visiting military brass she wrangled. Sent to Occam Aerospace Laboratory to keep tabs on pet projects, they got to wait while other people worked. They got bored and restless. Normally, after a week or two, Sally’s latest would have settled into being lax. They’d catch up on journals, or dictate letters to Army buddies, or sit on the edge of her desk telling her their life stories. Sally never minded. It was all great material for her book.

Strickland, though – he’d made it clear that he wasn’t going to relax, and that no woman was wrangling him. To him, Sally was there to type and maintain confidentiality around his mysterious Asset downstairs. He was petty enough to want to crush an underling for a slight. As General Hoyt’s man, he had the pull to do it. And when he got bored, it was not good.  He went somewhere inside his head and came back barely civilized.  

He was bored right now.

Sally was speculating about Strickland’s background when she heard a _k-_ _tink_ and a splash. He’d knocked over a glass of water. She gasped, aghast, “Mister Strickland!” She’d known his hand injury would act up sooner or later. Christ on a cracker, if there wasn’t some advance in Project: Asset today he’d hiss about this into next week. 

But maybe Strickland was feeling good after General Hoyt’s recent praise. Or maybe Norman Vincent Peale’s latest book had made a real impression on him. Because, for once, he was mellow about it. “Had a spill. Send Miss Esposito up, will you?” 

Of course, out of the two cleaners with clearance, Strickland asked for the white one, Sally thought. But then he said, “And go ahead and take lunch,” and Sally was too busy saying thank you and snatching up her bag to think about that more. 

Sally dashed down the stairs from the office-perch into the Signals area. The cleaner Sal had summoned fairly scurried on her way past, eager to get in and get out. Sally didn’t blame her. She’d been there when Strickland put the fear of God into the two cleaners. Even brassy Zelda had been tongue-tied.  

In Signals, Sally went to the desk of her oldest friend at Occam, a dame from the codebreaker days, and a few other things, too. “Free for lunch?” They all called it that, even though it was around two in the morning. 

“Funny you should ask.” Biffie Crawford-Houghton was known to one and all as Doc Crawford. She plucked a headset off her silver updo and stood up to her full height of six feet. With a tolerant chuckle, she noted, “Dr. Hoffstetler went by on his way to lunch – starting signal for the Sadie Hawkins Day race.” 

Sally smiled. With a constant stream of scientists coming and going, you never knew who Occam’s single women would choose as their next heart-throb. Currently, Dr. Robert Hoffstetler was their designated leading man. Sally had no idea why. The man wasn’t much taller than she was and was as pale as a glass of milk. 

But, sure enough, the boldest of the women who supervised top-secret airwaves overnight, tough little Rachel, asked, “Doc Crawford? Can we go on our lunch break?” Two more Signal team staff, both eligible females, gazed at Doc Crawford hopefully.

“Ah’m absolutely starving, ma’am,” blonde Bertha purred. 

“It is all very quiet,” Hideko said, holding her pretty lunchbox.

Doc Crawford declared, “Perfect timing. Sally and I will join you.” 

Handbags were seized, noses were powdered. When they finally got moving, Rachel quick-stepped next to her to ask, “Say, Miss Sally, got any dish on Dr. Hoffstetler?” 

“He’s a good egg. Real nice and quiet. He came to us from the University of Madison in Wisconsin. One of those genius at everything types.” Sally added, sotto voice, “Not married.” 

Sally had little use for men when she wasn’t being paid to deal with them. Still, she was curious. “Why’s Hoffstetler the one whose lab coat is made out of husband material all of a sudden?” 

The cleaner dashed past, on her way out. Sally wouldn’t have noticed if Hideko hadn’t said, “I saw Dr. Hoffstetler hold a door for her yesterday. For a janitor lady, he holds the door.”

“Someone’s nice to the cleaners, they’re a real gent,” Rachel agreed. 

“Picture how nice he’d be to one of _us_ ,” said Bertha. “Even if he is handsome.”

Sally barely managed a smile. When Doc Crawford raised her eyebrows above her aqua cats’ eye glasses, Sally said, “I’ve been busy. It’s…a project.”

The two older women fell back, Doc shortening her stride to ask, “One of those, eh?” 

“Makes the war look good, if you know what I mean.” 

Doc shook her utilitarian handbag. Something sloshed inside. She asked, with a wink, “Need a Roswell coffee?” 

Sally laughed mirthlessly. “Not with this one around. If he caught it on my breath…” 

Doc Crawford snorted. “You sure about that, Sal? Strickland’s own breath would drop a moose. Worse, the man has _no_ understanding of the scientific method _whatsoever_. He’s hounded his research group, absolutely hounded them. How Hoffstetler keeps his temper, I’ve no idea.” 

Doc was in stratospheric rant mode, now. “I wish this whole gosh-darn lab had a different name. Brass like Strickland hear ‘Occam,’ think ‘Occam’s Razor,’ and that’s it. Occam’s philosophy – simpler explanations and probable solutions have benefits – wasn’t meant to shut down the scientific method. Just to give it some breathing room in a universe of possibilities. But, no, ‘Occam’s Razor’ will gut their science problems and have them an answer in no time. And it had better be _their_ take on the right answer, because ‘almost’ only counts with horseshoes or nuclear war.”

Sally frowned. “Don’t say that too loud. You’ll give him ideas.”

They’d arrived at the upstairs cafeteria. Hoffstetler happened to be at a table by himself. All innocence, Doc Crawford declared, “Now will you look at that. Our gentleman from Madison is by himself. Perhaps one of you should join him!” 

Rachel grabbed Hideko’s arm. “He’s reading a book! Hidey, you go. You’re the linguist!”

“Oh, but you are a mathematician. Surely a genius would like you better.”

Bertha put her hands on her hips. “If you two can’t make up you-all’s minds I am taking my wavelength-calculating bouffant over there - ” 

“Too late,” Sally said. Strickland, on his own break, had taken the seat. She gave Doc a look, one shake of her head. 

Doc caught that. She said, briskly, “You heard Sal, don’t make her job any harder.” She steered the lot of them towards a table that had opened up. “Cheer up, girls. I’m reminded of what they say at my alma mater. Only failures marry!”

“Failure’s a valuable part of any experimental protocol,” said Rachel. Sally laughed, and listened, and forgot for a little while.

But she remembered a few hours later, back at her desk in Strickland’s office. Hoffstetler barged in, with more moxie than she’d thought he had. Strickland gave him a runaround and a half. Sent him out, let him back in. Hoffstetler went along with it. Sally pressed her lips together. The scientist knew he, too, was on the razor’s edge in here. 

Turned out Hoffstetler was putting up with the charade for a reason. When he finally got to open his mouth, he pleaded for the Asset’s life. Oh, Christ. Sally had thought their Asset was a critter, an animal, the way everything and everyone else had referred to it. But the way Hoffstetler talked, it sounded like it not only had a mind, it was like Sally. Smart enough to not let on about that to Strickland when it was in Strickland’s power. 

Strickland wasn’t having any of it. As he sneered, Sally could _see_ the stubbornness surface in Hoffstetler. It did a lot for the scientist. His jaw clicked forwards. His shoulders squared. A leading man at last. When he changed tack to agree with Strickland, the change was still there. Strickland either didn’t care or didn’t register. “You can thank me later,” Strickland said, insufferably. 

When Hoffstetler left, Sally got up herself to hold the door for him. She went back to her perch to blend into the furniture again, fuming. She wouldn’t put Strickland in her book, she decided: didn’t want to spend a minute with him when he was gone. A weak little revenge for all his petty moments, not enough for what she had just seen. 

At least Fleming knocked, coming in with the forms that had Strickland excited: paperwork confirming they’d kill that Asset. Sally sat and watched, feeling ground down. Naturally Strickland picked this moment to get distracted by the security cameras, keeping her from finishing her work, going home.

That was when the lights went black.

Strickland and Fleming pounded out. Sally had learned, from experience, to wait and see what was really happening. It was surprisingly refreshing to sit there in the dark. A little time to think. When the lights returned five minutes later, Fleming floundered in. “That thing – the Asset – gone – kidnapped!” 

Sally widened her eyes. This was it. She knew how to cover, how to dissemble – and how to do the opposite. “You’ll want to call it in, Mister Fleming, won’t you? General Hoyt would want to hear it from you.”

Fleming gaped for a moment. “Yes. Absolutely.” He dabbed at his nose. “Yes, calling it in right away – show we’re on it – ”    


Sally pitched her voice to soothe. “If you’ll step over to the desk, sir, I’ll dial him and transfer him through. Just by your red phone.” 

In two minutes, the red phone had sparked. Fleming was saying “General Hoyt! Sir!” 

Sally listened, satisfied. She wished she’d had that Roswell coffee. She’d let Doc pour her one tomorrow. She’d go encourage the Signals girls. Nice gals, one of them deserved to be Hoffstetler’s type. But she wouldn’t be able to take more notes for her book tomorrow. She was going to be very, very busy, she could tell. 

It was Strickland’s turn to feel the razor’s edge.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sally who? - In both movie and novel, Strickland's got a secretary at Occam, named in the script as Sally. She's there almost constantly, especially the night the creature gets freed. And whenever we get to see Sally's face she looks _so appalled_.  
>  What's happening at Hoffstetler's table? The events of another one of my stories, [The drowned man.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13261179)


	2. Hellboys and Gentlemen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of 1962, Dimitri pays a price for relative freedom – and, occasionally, Giles does, too. Especially when there’s a new fishman in town…Hellboy/Mignolaverse crossover with Abe Sapien and Hellboy.

Deep inside a top-secret base, outside of Fairfield, Connecticut, he was watching the watchers. They didn’t have clearance to see him. The observation niche that hid him was designed for a human individual. Simply existing in here had him steaming up the glass of the one-way mirror. Softly, with his left hand, he brushed the glass clear and peered out.  He was spying on spies, peering at more people in another discreet observation area.

Out there were two white men, at about the same stage of late middle age. One had a deeply scarred face, leaned on a cane, and sported dark salt-and-pepper hair with dramatic white streaks under a homburg hat. His only concession to it being 1978 was the hair brushing his collar. The other man, taller, tawnier, light on his feet, had a trim mustache and goatee. He was fashionable in mustard and russet. 

Their two minders left them alone for a moment. He leaned one ear against one half of the headphones – those, too, not designed for his skull – and listened to them. 

One man said, in a slightly European voice, “You’re looking well, Giles. Very well. Every time I see you, I swear you haven’t aged a day.” 

Giles replied with all-American geniality. “I’d say it’s clean living except you know it’s not!” They both laughed. The pair of them had a cultivated air. Not military roughnecks, not the normal run of intelligence agents. Their watcher thought of professors and gentlemen.

“Seriously, what am I here for today? This isn’t one of those blob creatures they can’t photograph, is it? I hate those.” Giles put a hand over his heart. “But for you, Dimitri, I’ll draw them. A handsome man could always wrap me ‘round his little finger.” So, one was an artist: new and interesting. 

There was a flash of humor as Dimitri smiled. “No, no. All they need today is our opinion. They want to know if you think what you’ll see is…another possible Devonian. Another creature.” 

Giles gasped with delight. “Another creature! Did they go back to the Amazon?”

"No. He is a recent discovery. I cannot say more. But he is - wait. They’re coming.” The men stepped apart.

Their minders returned, supplemented with an official. She droned at the two men for a while. “To confirm: Under the conditions stated in Case BPRD-746 you are obliged to render us periodic assistance as required. What you are about to see in this facility…” As she spoke, Dimitri compressed into himself, half-sliding into a shadow. He cast a knowing glance at the one-way mirror, touched his hatbrim towards it. The other man stayed where he was like a hare caught in headlights.  

A curtain was drawn over a different one-way mirror. Dimitri touched Giles’ elbow and said, “It’s simple, my friend. Look through there. And tell us what you think…” 

Giles clenched his hands in eager anticipation, then lowered them, slumping.  

Their watcher knew they looked out onto a laboratory-cum-dormitory. Inside, there was a blue fish man, walking around, having a conversation with a researcher, casting conscious glances through the glass. As the researcher directed, the fish man turned, raised his arms, turned again.  

Giles remained crestfallen. “No. I’m certain – no.”   

The official asked, “So you’re saying this is definitely not visually related to the previous case?” 

The word _visual_ set Giles thinking. “No. That – case, as you call him – had a charcoal base undertone, like a carp. Now, I like the blue here, a good color choice, less detailing, much easier to draw. I could do a good action-oriented pose series, really capture the movement,” he mused. 

The official snapped, “If you’d read your forms you’d note that you’re specifically barred from later renditions of what you are witnessing.“ 

“Please,” Dimitri said. “Let him speak.” 

Giles had barely registered this. He was up against the glass into the lab, now. "The way I remember, the – the previous case - had all these subtle differences in the muscles, compared to a human. In his movement, too. The way this fellow’s standing, all his muscles are where they should be for a human male. Trust me, I’m an expert in those. And the body language – he’s moving around in there like some Victorian gent. It’s _aware_ body language. He's stopping to think. Plus, he's talking to that person there? Talking! To say nothing of the clothing. Shorts. Are the shorts there for a reason?”  

“Yes. His genitalia are external,” Dimitri noted, drily. 

“Well, that’s fine. Nothing wrong with that. I feel more confident that way myself,” Giles said. Dimitri’s mouth quirked. The official dropped her forehead into her hand.  

They all watched for a moment longer. Giles said, “It's like something made a man out of a dolphin and added a few gills. He looks like an all right fellow." He stepped back from the glass, shaking his head. “But he just hasn’t got the same magic as our friend before. I don’t look at him and feel that…” Giles opened his two hands in a gesture of boundless wonder.  

Giles said, ruefully, “He’s too human.” 

Dimitri bowed his head. 

Giles asked, “Say, can we meet him?” 

Dimitri said, “The answer, I fear, is not today. I believe we are done here? Very good. I know it was tiresome, traveling here under guard, but I will accompany you back to New York. Where was it that we had lunch last time – the Algonquin?” 

"Depends if you're up for the round table or room service..." The pair and their minders departed.  

The only one left was the official, who didn’t look too pleased. 

He opened his side door and stepped up to the official. Very fixedly, she kept looking out of the two-way mirror. His senses could tell when she started to sweat.  

He spoke at last, keeping his voice quiet. "You heard the artist. You know who brought the artist in - and what he knows. What they say is what I've been saying all along. He’s human. Or as close to it as I am." One massive red hand, connected to an inhumanly muscular arm, landed gently on the researcher's shoulder. He whispered with a hint of a rasp and brimstone, like a struck match. "So you'll stop with the experiments on him, now." 

The official swallowed. She managed to nod once. She lifted her clipboard and said, “I’ll put here ‘Observation solution supported by Hellboy,’ shall I? Then act as we’ve, er, discussed.” 

“That's all I asked. Thank you,” Hellboy said. And pulled the curtain, to give the blue-skinned gentleman on the other side some privacy. 


	3. Looking for a Sign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri’s point of view for [Chapter 4 of _The Man of the Future._](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13877352/chapters/32208102) The man known as Dr. Hoffstetler is weary of his life of espionage and science on others’ behalf. But a vision of the creature and Elisa gives him a breath of joy, and a timely reminder that the monstrous can also be an escape.

Dimitri Moskavich was a fastidious man. He had insisted on freshening up before his last assignation at this academic conference. For half an hour, he wished to scrub off being called Dr. Robert Hoffstetler. After forty years, the name still rang false to him.

The conference was agreeable, astrobiology and alien intelligence at Miskatonic University. But four days of flinching from his latest minder had drained him. For the powers that held him had unearthed Strickland’s close-to-clueless son. Dimitri did not know what was more disquieting: the man’s physical presence, evoking his old tormentor, or what he had learned about himself through Tim Strickland.

Dimitri did not regret the devil’s bargain he had made back in 1962. After what had happened at Occam, the inadvertent conspiracy to free the Devonian, had ended, he had offered his knowledge and service to the Americans. His price: pardons for what Zelda and Giles had done, colluding with Elisa to kidnap the Asset. With Elisa dead or gone, Dimitri had taken all the blame and credit. The Americans had accepted. Dimitri had swapped one set of masters and deceit for another, to find there was little difference. At least Dimitri had chosen it. There was something to that.

It felt like the least he could have done. Himself, Giles, Zelda, Elisa most of all, had all been attracted by the energies around the Devonian. They had all interpreted it through their best nature. Elisa through action and love. Zelda with true friendship. Giles as fiery creativity. Himself, wild inspiration into the meaning of life, a new level of theory. That was a blessing and a curse for Dimitri. For just as Giles still painted, great canvases of dreamlike beauty, so too Dimitri continued to refine those theories. The powers that held Dimitri knew close he was to ground-breaking revelations.

World-breaking, even.

Hence, Dimitri deduced, the presence of young Strickland. A reminder to Dimitri that he was watched, owned, as essentially chained as the Devonian had once been. And as vulnerable to torment and the threat of death.

The bitter pleasure of goading the youngish man had worn off two days ago, though Dimitri never doubted that the son kept his father’s memory green. Did Dimitri himself not recall his own beloved Mama and Papa many times a day? Tim Strickland had his father’s hunter’s gaze, that same unsettling sense of waiting to strike. Despite this, he had some qualities. Asked to use Dimitri’s full, false title, he did, without protest. He attacked food with gusto, held doors open, looked twice at autumn leaves or pretty women. Most disconcertingly, in unguarded moments, he sang.

Tim seemed unaware of this, humming or muttering excruciating modern music. “Rock” or “disco.” Dimitri didn’t know where the man’s current tune fell on that dismal continuum: 

_Time was drifting, this rocker got to roll, so I hit the road and made my getaway_

_Restless feeling, really got a hold, I started searching for a better way…._

_Kept on looking for a sign in the middle of the night, but I couldn’t get it right, no I couldn’t get it right…_

It was flawed of him. One of the signs that he was a beast from the same herd as Dimitri’s other minders. KGB, CIA, NSA, FBI: the acronyms and accents changed, but the men remained similar. They would violate Dimitri’s privacy, manhandle him, shoot him if necessary – but, for the most part, only then. When it was part of their job. Like them, this younger Strickland was, overall, human. Human enough to appeal to Dimitri’s loneliness at weak moments. And, through that, for Dimitri to consider something terrible.

If the first Strickland, on those fateful September days back in 1962, had been less monstrous, less of a sadist, would Dimitri still have helped to rescue the Devonian? Or would he have turned his back on a miracle manifest for his own selfish reasons? His hope of going home, to the snows of Minsk?

The late-come thought made him feel as weak and tired in soul as he was in body.

The tub had filled. Dimitri removed his garments and inventoried the scars he owed to Strickland. He could trace three kinds of pain back to Strickland’s cruel interrogation. A little relief for all of them awaited in the bath.

Dimitri lay back in the tub with a sigh for the water’s warmth and buoyancy. It relieved his aching left hip and always-roiled gut. He closed his eyes. To soothe his troubled unconscious, he turned to his his intellect. Mentally, he leapt through the quantum physics calculations that would be in play later tonight. He leaned back further in the water, submerging his ears.

The bath water conducted true music from somewhere else in the hotel. The piercing sweetness of a violin warbled. Dimitri recalled hearing that from the lab in Occam where, twenty-two years past, Elisa had soothed the creature. He envied her escape, however she had achieved it. Either death in the arms of those who loved her best, or the transformation that dear delusional Giles pictured. Giles claimed to see the two of them, happy and together, in his dreams, Elisa magically alive beneath the waves. Dimitri wished he was pure enough to imagine such a thing.

For the moment, he whispered calculations along with the violin. He closed his eyes, water and music and math combining for a brief, perfect escape…

…and he was dreaming. Surely Dimitri was dreaming, to swim like this, through dark, cloudy green water. A night dive, a sense of a river rather than the sea, pierced here and there with the moon’s luminosity. There was a glimmer of light, perhaps a beam right below the moon. He swam towards it. He realized he was half-dressed, in shirt and boxers and socks with garters, and smiled. He always forgot his trousers in dreams.

The light he sought arced above a nest on the river’s bed. Soft, feathery green plants undulated in a gentle current. Silver angelfish and flashing guppies darted about, drawn by the luminance. The nest was a bed itself, a couch for a drowsing dryad, a mermaid, a goddess. For the last woman he had thought of: Elisa.

Elisa transformed, beyond any possible science.

Dimitri drank her in, rapt with wonder. Elisa was curled up in her green nest. Her silvery, scaled limbs were limned with fine fins here and there. Her dark hair, thickened a touch, waved in the current. She was asleep. Perhaps her dreaming had smoothed his mind’s path here.

At his thought, Elisa shifted. Her torso arced, revealing delicate, dark-tipped breasts. An aquatic Aprhrodite, a Venus at home in her waters. She sighed once. At that, gills fluttered along her throat. This would be how Giles’ vision might come to pass. Phenomenal. Not even the DNA shifts that could come during a being’s life could explain such changes. Unless, perhaps, they were supported by a power like unto a god, a power vivid enough to shine through this green water.

For the creature arced up behind Elisa, illuminated as Dimitri had never seen him. The Devonian, too, drank in the sleeping Elisa, tenderly brushed a stray tendril of weed away from her face.  Dimitri would have wept for the beauty of them both if he was not in the element of tears itself. Tropical-warm, mineral-heavy, so little distinction between this water and the body’s fluids of life.

Gently, slowly, the creature turned his gaze to Dimitri. There was a tilt of his head, a flash of his golden, amphibian eyes, a querying croon vibrating to be heard, like underwater music. The creature made hand-signs, the way Elisa did. Pointing at Dimitri, at itself, bringing its two fists together. It gestured at the water around. Then, it reached out to him. At the same time, Elisa blinked sleepily, with the start of a smile, as if she was waking to the sight of a dear friend.

He was being invited to stay with them.

It was the most touching invitation of Dimitri’s life. He knew what it would mean to accept, with his mind surely so far from his body: a final, sweet release into the cycle of life. But the stubborn root of him was not done with his own life yet.

The Devonian read this in him and took it graciously. As he had once before, he bowed, this time waving a hand. A slightly warmer current stroked Dimitri, sent his shirt belling out in the water. Dimitri felt part of his spirit shift, strengthen, a glimmer of energy coiling up his spine like a jungle vine. Such vigor! Intoxicated by it, Dimitri imagined that even death might die. He felt blessed by the creature, washed by its force eternal, given a nudge to the next step of his destiny, propelled up through the water, to –

Dimitri opened his eyes. He was in a tepid bathtub, looking at a pressed-tin ceiling, in a historic inn on Miskatonic’s campus. He sat up by reflex. The sound of water gurgling out of his ears replaced that soothing violin. He was his normal, foolish self.

The vision brought back all that wracked him in the creature’s presence at Occam. Tears such as he had not wept since the days of his innocence, righteous anger, the strength to kill. Oh, he would have been the same fool twice. He would have tried to save the creature. It would have gone differently, with no guarantee of success. Perhaps he might have succeeded in dragging his ‘research’ out, so that he would have been the main actor, not Elisa. That might have led to another desperate ending. In a Russian lab and on a Soviet dock. Or on the wrong side of Strickland’s gun again, taken down by fewer, more efficient shots, fired by a man just doing his job.

Young Strickland’s humming penetrated the bathroom’s door.

_Kept on looking for a sign in the middle of the night, but I couldn’t see the light, no I couldn’t see the light_

_Kept on looking for a way to take me through the night, couldn’t get it right, couldn’t get it right…_

A reminder that he was here, now, the bound and vulnerable creature he had been five minutes ago. Yet Dimitri levered himself out of the water with an ease he had not known in years, mind blazing with inspiration. His last assignation here was more advanced than anything officially presented at the conference: an attempt to open a door to another world. One where, the researcher had warily hinted, there might be monstrous new beings to glimpse. 

Dimitri’s vision of Elisa and the Asset had him thinking of that in new ways. For he had seen the possibility of transformation, signs that transcended words, yearned-for connection made real. What if he could bring that to a meeting with new and alien beings? Could he live in their world, as Elisa now lived in the creature’s waters of life?

Dimitri retained that curious sense of energy. He felt lighthearted as he took up the shirt, the boxers, adjusted his sock garters. Dressed in these, the garb of his dreams, he padded out into the main room.

His timing was perfect. Like father, like son: young Strickland was taking some prescription pills. He brazened it out, swallowing and looking Dimitri right in the eye. “Ready to rock and roll?”

_So I hit the road and made my getaway –_

For once in his life, Dimitri said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim's earworm here is [Couldn't Get It Right](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDcbZYQTim4) by the Climax Blues Band.


	4. Heart of the Lotus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a peaceful Amazon lagoon, a passion that transcends gender with Elisa and the creature.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaand this one ties into Dimitri's dreaming in _Looking for a Sign._ Warnings for this one: Explicit smut, oral sex, genderbending/new and interesting genders. It's different! 
> 
> Some inspiration here from [ del Toro's own comments about the creature being genderfluid!](https://shape-of-water.tumblr.com/post/170793730427/shapeofh2o-guillermo-del-toro-on-the-shape-of)

Underwater, Elisa’s eyes fly open.

Life is dreamlike enough here in the Amazon that the dream Elisa wakes from feels like reality. Of all the things! Of all the people! She could have sworn that Dr. Dimitri had been standing in the water-weeds in front of her, perfectly proper with his eyeglasses and shirt and sock garters. Granted, he had been missing his trousers. But, surely, when a friend came to visit you at the bottom of an Amazon river lagoon, it was all right to be casual.

Dr. Dimitri had stood there for one instant, as pleased and startled as she was. Then he had dissolved into a hard-edged handful of stars. By the time Elisa had really awakened, there was nothing left, not even a stray sparkle. So very strange.

Now everything around Elisa is normal again. Normal, that is, for her life now. She is submerged in green-gold water. The full moon is a shimmering blur above. True luminance comes from the presence of her dear love, the creature, arcing protectively over her. He utters a yawp.

Elisa smiles in greeting. Then, she kicks herself upright in a cloud of silt and leaves. She reaches to embrace the creature, to reassure herself he is here, not about to dissolve into stars, too. Yes, he is slim and firm and strong beside her. She caresses his scales lovingly. After a long moment entwined with him, she signs, _I go up_. She kicks anew and launches herself to the water’s surface.

She breaches in paradise. They have been resting at the bottom of a dark, slow-current lagoon. The water’s surface is spread with vast water-lily pads. Their leaves are as wide as Elisa is tall. If she wants, she can curl up on the very largest ones to stargaze, and they will bear her weight. The arcing night above is lit by a gilded moon. Around the sky’s edges, the million stars of the Milky Way glitter like diamonds. Moonlight and starlight silver the water, sharpen the shadows around.

Elisa hears the _pop_ of a water lily bud opening. The fragrant flowers look like giant lotus, wider than her two outstretched hands. She can watch them unfurl and change color over the course of a night. The creature, endlessly patient in his joy, has taught her this. With him, she has learned to rest in each glorious moment here. She simply, blissfully is, beside the creature, in the water.

_the water unites us all the world is here dark and light air and liquid earth and leaves the thousand thousand creatures the woman we love with her we are complete all we need is here we hunger and there’s a fish we eat it flesh and blood are good and we love the fish we love the things we eat gill creatures most of all we are their god that means they are ours to love the woman our Elisa has gills now she makes us more complete she brings us many things the dry bright world and sharp thoughts and time and desire such desire Elisa has been not close for a breath for three breaths for many breaths but we scent her we go to find her_

It helps Elisa sharpen her thoughts when she breathes air. That’s also when she remembers her past and her land-friends more. Zelda, and Dr. Dimitri, and Giles. It is Giles that Elisa dreams of most often. In those dreams, they don’t really talk, or if they do, it’s not important. Mostly, they just beam at each other. One precious dreamtime she found herself walking downstairs from a place that was, in sleep-logic, Giles’ studio. She had gone through a living room, to a pretty bedroom with French doors out onto a garden. There, Zelda lay asleep, nestled against a man who wasn’t Brewster. In the dream, Elisa had smiled, and glanced at a moonbeam in the garden, and that was that. This vision of Dr. Dimitri had a different quality. He’d been so close, so aware, she could have signed to him.

To think about what it means, Elisa sidestrokes between the lily pads to the western edge of the lagoon. There, a great tree has toppled sideways into the water. Its branches shelter a thousand fish below, a hundred birds above. Elisa pulls herself out of the water to perch on its moss-cushioned trunk. She sees ripples in the lagoon. The creature is also swimming, beneath the surface.

_we love her we follow her we are so happy one of her friends came to us here it was the weak one the whitecoat from the bad cave but he was happy to see Elisa he loves her he is good and we love him too we see his past he was once hurt by the bad man and the lightning pain stick the same as the bad man hurt us we are sorry so sorry we touched the part of him that is here to try and heal we see his future he will go very far away to other gods star gods abyss gods but he knows the way to us now and some time he will return_

_Elisa wants the air we want to be with her so we follow her scent in the water through leaves into night and air the air here is good it is not the dead air of the bad cave remembering that time hurts we eat a water flower it is soft and fragrant and with the flower and the hurt we want Elisa more_

_there are her flippers they stir the water as she sits she is thinking about the whitecoat her friend and we! are! excited! because she too saw him she begins to see to truly see our world its spirits the gods it brings her pain like when we began to feel time and love her as our mate she helped us then we help her now_

Elisa has just decided that she’ll wait and see if something like that vision happens again when she feels it. Her feet are dangling in the water. Something tickles her toes. She gasps and starts as vast, wet hands come up from the depths to wrap around her calves. As the monstrous hands grasp her, she smiles. The creature has come to join her, the beautiful planes of his face surfacing between her legs.

Elisa pats the mossy log beside her. In response, the creature lifts his head out of the water and brushes his mouth against her knee. She smiles saucily and pats, instead, between her slightly spread legs. Matching her playfulness, the creature utters a trilling growl. He turns his head and nips the soft inside of Elisa’s thigh, once, twice, three times, each time a little further up. Elisa squirms breathlessly, her thoughts abandoned, thoroughly returned to her body.

They have all the time in the world, and the creature expresses it by sliding his hands down her legs, inexpressibly slowly. He stretches her legs out so that they point over the water like a dancer’s, her feet tiny in each of his hands. His trilling purr of appreciation sets Elisa squirming again. She is suddenly warm enough that the night’s coolness has evaporated.

_we love all of this woman her surface her scents her heartbeat we love her legs she is a two legs like us yet so different small slim her thighs taste good soft and warm blood beneath skin the turns of her knee complex with bone her small wonderful flippers we gave her webs for her flippers and she loves them as we love her_

_she smiles and points flippers joy warms her she loves herself now and it is beautiful love overwhelms us we are here to help mating always helps and she loves many things being touched and stroked presses from our mouth being licked we will do the things she loves_

Slowly, tantalizingly, the creature begins to work his way up Elisa’s right leg. He admires every inch of it, tracing his claw-tips along her, following them with his mouth. Now he nips, small bites that make her jump, now he kisses, as Elisa has taught him. And now he follows his own pure instincts, lacing his long, rough tongue along her. Its texture is delicious to Elisa. As he goes, he leaves his trace behind: silvery streaks of the slime that protects him, keeping her wet and sensitive.

By the time he reaches the dip where Elisa’s thigh meets her hips, she is panting, head reeling from his touch and the sweet-pineapple scent of the lily flowers. She cannot help reaching between her own legs, opening herself with spread limbs and a pair of fingers.

No other sign is necessary. Elisa curves her hips, offering her loins to him. One turn of his head, and he is home, his upper lip resting on her clit, his tongue’s breadth pressing against her entrance. The cool wetness of his mouth strokes, soothes, penetrates.

Elisa gazes down. His dark, finned head bows between her legs, the wide muscles of his shoulders spreading beautifully below. The tips of his finger-claws curve around the edges of her hips, for he holds and lifts her behind, and the slight claw-scratch and hard grip both tantalize her. His eyes’ flash is hidden, for with his scant nose, he buries his face in her, working her to bliss. Together, they breathe the air with vast gasps between held breaths, the creature at his beloved work, Elisa quivering in joyous tension. She closes her eyes to concentrate on feeling.

First, his full lips press her, brushing the few inches between her legs adoringly.  She feels his mouth part and goes still, her breath and gills vibrating like hummingbirds. She knows what comes next: that strange, long tongue of his, rough and blissful. The first firm lap at her sends her arcing back, almost lying down on the mossy tree-trunk. That makes it easy for him to dip his tongue inside her, driving her wild.

_we love the things we eat Elisa the most all gentle all love we taste her liquids her taste so delicious the smell of mating all around us hot blood in her veins fast air in her lungs in the water we meld out here we are different it is all good all pleasure all bliss we lick her fur her petals her pebble her emptiness a whole world between her legs she wants more and we will give it is our joy to lick and enter and love as we eat her_

Elisa has curled back up to sitting, sheltering the creature’s face as she rides him shamelessly. He’s shifted to tongue the spot that makes her come deep and hard. There is no resisting it. Pure and animal, she gives in to the heaven of it, hot waves of pleasure. Her very deepest climax rocks her so that her breath and lips pop in an air-sound like one of the lily buds bursting.

She leans back, bracing against her arms, limp and spent. When the mostly-submerged creature tilts his head in query, she pats the log beside her. His claws grip the log. Easily, all grace, he vaults up beside her to let her melt against his shoulder. After a resting moment, Elisa turns her head and lavishes his shoulder with kisses. His responding groan tells Elisa it's her turn.

She smiles and signs _me now for you._ She hopes: she wishes she knew she was as good for him. She slips herself into the water, keeping her torso out by holding onto his spreading knees. Pleasantly suspended between their two worlds, she brings her face to his crotch. His shaft is not revealed yet: as his arousal begins, what stands out is a bulge of promise, scaly plates sliding away from a fleshy slit.

Elisa pauses. The slit, the swelling edges, the tempting glisten of lubrication it starts to drip, beckons her to touch. She has neglected this part of him in her own greed for the wonderful shaft he conceals. A part of him she has not loved as she might. Tentatively, she kisses him there. When she strokes her tongue along the slit’s length, he arcs and moans, very like herself.

Elisa lets herself make love as the creature does, appreciating every inch of him as he does of her. Again and again she slides her tongue along the slit’s length. At first she catches the edges of his lower scales and plates. Soon the stimulation has each side of his slit swelling further, pulsing, slick with exactly the same juices that drip down his shaft when he is aroused. It is like her vulva, and yet not, both simpler and more complex, hiding change and mystery.

She is fascinated. She draws out these long, perfect moments of arousal and exploration with her touches and kisses. He is cupping the back of her head in one of his great hands, his breathing urgent yet measured. He is more serene than when she takes his cock in her mouth, but their shared sense of pleasurable tension escalates.

_she begins to see truly see what we are that we are between we will be anything she needs but it is good so good to be us we love her as we love ourself she is loving us the way we are for her we were the sun the piercing light the hunter now we are also the night and the water and the stars are brought home to our flesh_

At last, something becomes irresistible to her. Elisa places her mouth at the top of his slit and sucks in, slightly. A point of flesh nudges Elisa’s tongue. The creature’s keening cry rings to the trees on the edge of the lagoon. Maybe, thinks Elisa, this is the start of his shaft. Elisa’s fingers stroke below. If it is, his overstimulated slit, swollen tight, holds him in stasis, divinely between. At her fingering, he rams against her, his uninterrupted keening a song of desire. Elisa leans in to give him the ecstasy he’s given her so many times, her mouth treasuring his point of flesh, her right hand curled to knuckles, stroking and nudging his aroused zone.

_so different so good her mouth so soft so blunt so very hot her pale clever fingers like tentacles they stroke they open but do not hurt will never hurt she drinks us she eats us yes we are together yes we are hard and wet and aching the pain of it is good and we need her mouth, her fingers, need her, her, her she knows she does not stop_

_again again again the stars the knowing the heat the between again again again the love_

His body’s arc of orgasm is so powerful it shakes the tree they perch on, rippling the lagoon’s waters. Elisa hears his cries of ecstasy, tastes his slickness. Daringly, she keeps going until he keens and trembles again. For an instant, a spurt of his fluids fountains into her mouth. His milt is as pure and briny-sweet as always. When his sounds are on the edge of pain – a feeling Elisa knows well, now – she slides back, kissing his thighs to ease their parting.

With a deep moan, he slides from the tree into the water, plunging and then surfacing anew beside her. He blinks as she raises her hands to sign: _happy?_

In reply, he places his mouth against hers, for the first time in all this encounter. And they kiss.

Their love-play has gone on so long that the moon has wheeled into setting. The varied arc of stars is above them now, its thousand beautiful differences. Elisa catches a streak of light going across, sharp as one of the stars Hoffstetler had dissolved into. A falling star for a wish. Her wish is simple: let her state of simply being with the creature go on, and on, like their lovemaking tonight. _Look_ , she signs, and points at the star.

_we are together between air and water we and her and we are happy soon she will be a god with us not the tree god visiting our water here not a snake god an amoeba god a star god the whitecoat knew the god she will be a being of love with us always easing the world when we feel time and are sad smiling when we do not and are happy_

_she sees a star god move and signs to us, sharing_

_we are loved_

_we love_


	5. The Brewster Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 2006, a marine biologist OC is delighted, grieved, and inspired by the records around Project: Asset. Plus, forty-four years on, Baltimore’s women still remember a man named Brewster – and why, compared to him, even Strickland’s disastrous son looks all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another side piece for _The Man of the Future_ , this one close after the end of [Chapter 6.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13877352/chapters/32447484) An outsider's brush with the fairytale-strange events around Project: Asset, courtesy of that story's OC, Sarah. 
> 
> Warnings: Sexual references and stepsibling involvement.

It was seven on a rainy, cool Sunday morning. No sane woman would get out of bed. But Sarah had ten aquariums and seven specimen tanks, and their creatures all depended on her. Anyway, yesterday probably disqualified her as ‘sane.’

Quietly, she wriggled up, pulled on yesterday’s leggings and wrap dress. Before tiptoeing away, she hovered over the person still in her bed. The man there was almost too tall for the standard mattress. He was lying on his stomach, still unconscious, like he hadn’t slept enough for weeks.

After everything he’d told her yesterday, that wouldn’t surprise her one bit.

Sarah tiptoed downstairs. Her rowhome’s living-dining area was a disaster. Every surface was covered with files from a national security incident in 1962. The papers and folders had a soft blue tinge from the lights in five glowing aquariums.

What the files revealed was staggering. A dream come true for anyone like her, with a marine biology background. A piscine hominid from the Devonian! Captured on film, in photos and artwork! Sentient, even, using sign language and in love with a human!  Absolutely amazing! Especially when the entire scientific establishment had formally brushed off _homo piscis_ in 1889. This sort of creature, natural wonders, living fossils, was why everyone entered marine biology. Even plankton analyzers or grant writers felt this undertow. The man asleep upstairs had shattered confidentiality to share the Devonian's existence with her. And the adrenaline around that had led to this get-it-out-of-our-systems weekend in bed with him.

Sarah slipped out of her rowhome, nipping around the corner for a pumpkin spice latte. Living in central Baltimore had gotten a lot nicer lately. Back home, she checked aquariums, fed creatures, and took notes. Her bossy sister Tammy – stepsister, really  –  claimed that the tanks were the seventeen reasons why Sarah was currently single. But Sarah didn’t want to get rid of any of them, their jewel-like worlds and sheltered sea life. She wasn’t the only National Aquarium employee to have some informal rescues at home.

Besides, her stepmother believed everyone needed someone who appreciated them for who they truly were. “Sometimes that takes a while. But it isn’t worth it otherwise,” Elaine had said. Sarah’s guts twisted with guilt. What was happening now was _not_ what Elaine had in mind. However much it felt like it. 

In the tanks, everyone was happy except for one of the rescues: Squeegee, the world’s naughtiest octopus. Squeegee was sulking next to his water pump. He got jealous. Yesterday he’d had plenty to be jealous about. Sarah slid a crab into the tank for him. He wrenched it apart with gusto.

The octopus tank was in the living-dining area. Experimentally, Sarah took one item from the files, some Xeroxed art of the Devonian, and held it against his tank’s glass. Squeegee immediately went velvety dark with white spots, zooming to the drawing. He splayed his tentacles across the art, like he was trying to taste it or caress it. She took the drawing away. The octopus bleached his color and blooped to the top of his tank, the start of an escape attempt. When Sarah brought the art back, he zoomed back to embrace it again. In the end, she had to tape the art to the tank's glass.

Sarah flipped through more of the art files. Unbelievable that they’d kept the Devonian in a tank, captured him at all. To say nothing of the inhumane way they’d treated him. That video tape – they'd stopped watching it halfway through, but still – she went nauseous just remembering. Yet, working for the National Aquarium, she saw how ethics around marine captivity shifted every year. She winced to think of the dolphin exhibits that had thrilled her as a child, the in-house debates at the aquarium now.

The Devonian’s story gave her the urge to set Squeegee free. But she knew better. The best she could do was give the octopus the care that had overwhelmed a hobby aquarist.  Squeegee was from a tropical species. The cold water of the nearby Chesapeake would kill him. She hadn’t had the heart to say it might have killed the creature from 1962, too.  

A captive octopus wasn’t the only ethical dilemma she had right now. Sarah tiptoed back upstairs. Her bedroom was strewn with tossed-aside clothes, empty wine glasses, and more high-clearance FBI documents. And he was still asleep. He had shifted to sprawl across the entire bed, his face buried in her own pillow. She scooped up his undershirt and inhaled his scent. The indefinable rightness of it defied how wrong everything else about him was.

Tim needed a shave and a shower. He needed to stop smoking. And he ought to be banned in Boston, he was such an animal in bed. He had all the baggage a man could have without a kid: mood swings, that divorce, daddy issues and then some. His PSTD-inducing FBI work had warped him with paranormal weirdness, followed by disturbing attempts at self-medication. Most of all, first of all, worst of all, he was her stepbrother.  

But he did pass the Brewster Test.  

The Brewster Test was simple. Her workmate Shanice’s family had come up with it a generation back. Shanice’s aunt had married a man named Brewster. Brewster had been tall, handsome, single in his early forties. His wife, Zelda, had left him. Run away for a man from her night job and a housekeeping position in New York. Shanice’s aunt fell for Brewster after meeting the poor hard-done by soul at church. A year later, the aunt knew why his wife had left. 

Hence the Brewster Test. This simple dating guideline for women who couldn’t do without men lived on through the Baltimore grapevine. _Did a man care about you? Did he pull his weight? Would he move his ass on your behalf?_ A Brewster would not. Any man worth having would.

Tim – well. In their teens and twenties, he’d offer to beat up anyone or anything giving Sarah trouble. Today, he’d loom over a contractor or snarl at a garage if she was getting the runaround. She’d never been sure if he cared, or if that was wishful thinking on her part, and he was doing it for the macho posturing. That had been before the shattering revelations of the past twenty-four hours. 

Sarah didn’t know how bad it was that Tim had shared those classified files with her, but it had to be trouble. He’d known how much she’d want to learn about such a creature. He’d even spilled what he’d learned from a surviving conspirator. Including the heart-wrenching, inspiring part about the creature and a wispy Baltimore janitor being in love. That put a lot of things in perspective.

In between getting-it-out-of-their-systems, in the small hours of the night, they’d been talking instead of sleeping. She’d gone back to the topic that had brought them together, asking playfully, “What do you think the Devonian would be like on a date?”

Anyone else would have had fun with that. But Tim, humorless as his sister, took it straight. “I’m guessing…fierce. Possessive. But it sounded like, if you were his, he wouldn’t want to hurt you.” More of his own confessions followed. She’d reminded him that she was a grown woman, making her own decisions. And if he was trusting her around the Asset-case-reveal’s confidentiality, he should trust her about that, too.

He'd replied, “How is it that you make everything okay? I’d ask where you’ve been all my life. Except I fucking know.” Then he’d pulled her back to him in the dark.

Afterwards, she’d stayed awake, her mind racing like she was twenty-one instead of fifty-one. Marveling over how much Tim had shared with her, realizing what he’d held back to protect her over the years. If all that wasn’t passing the Brewster Test, Sarah didn’t know what was.

Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed, wincing as it compressed beneath her. Tim started. “Just me,” she said.

He opened one eye, then mumbled, “Dressed…want me to go?”

“You were asleep ten seconds ago.” Sarah smiled. “That’s my pillow you’re eating there.” Still waking up, unguarded, Tim flinched back. Like that little thing was something he’d done wrong.

“I’m _kidding_ , Tim!” Sarah wanted to ask where he and his sister had left their sense of humor. But after watching that video of the captive creature with Tim’s terrifying father, she understood. Understood him and Tammy, each contentious and wary, ruthlessly pressuring themselves.  Elaine's sadness, too. And why Elisa, two generations back, had rescued that dazzling marine man.

Sarah wished she’d been around to give Elisa a decent tank and more. She could have asked Elisa how to handle it when the monstrous turned out to be what you wanted, when an escaped secret seethed out of bounds. But, wait. Thanks to the files, she already knew where Elisa would start. “How about breakfast? Up for some eggs?”


	6. Unholy Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim Strickland learns why it’s a blessing that nobody tried to teach the Asset verbal speech. Hellboy/Mignolaverse crossover with BRPD’s _Plague of Frogs_ storyline and its frog monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another side piece for _The Man of the Future_ , again close after the end of [Chapter 6.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13877352/chapters/32447484) Whatever happened to CALLER ID BLOCKED? 
> 
> Warnings: stepsibling involvement, psychological horror.

Tim Strickland drifted into work before seven on that Tuesday morning. October 10, 2006. For once, he was grateful for a long weekend. He stashed three FBI archive boxes beside his Quantico desk, like they’d never been away. You weren’t supposed to take files home, but everyone did it. He got coffee started, answered a few emails. It was his old habit: pretending everything was normal.

As if Tim hadn’t spent three days breaking confidentiality into pieces and stomping on them. Watching vintage video of his father, Richard Strickland, torturing a marine cryptid, known chiefly as the Asset. Screaming at a gay centenarian, Giles Dupont, on the phone at three A.M. to get the final facts around that. Admitting he was the second Strickland to lose out in a battle against strange forces, and naming what it cost him, the sanity-tearing interdimensional rifts he endured. Deciding that his marine biologist stepsister, out of anybody, had to see this Asset, too. Which had led to a get-it-out-of-our-systems, let-us-never-speak-of-this-again weekend in bed with her.

That part had gone too well. She was not out of his system. He’d have to speak to her about this again. Because he had a strong suspicion he couldn’t stand existence without her. Not only because of her brilliance and warmth, her silkiness and elusive spicy-sweet scent. He hadn’t endured a _rift_ since midnight Saturday night. Fifty-five hours and counting, a new record. Maybe shattering every taboo he could get his hands on had realigned the cosmic misery around him. 

What the hell should he do next? They’d both been half-asleep when he’d left her place in Baltimore at four in the morning. In his coffeeless state, Tim had muttered something about calling soon. Had she taken it as a brush-off? Should he wait until he knew if he was busted at work for what he’d done this weekend before reaching out again? Or call her now?

Calls. That reminded Tim of something. His phone’s voicemail light was on.

Tim had forgotten about CALLER ID BLOCKED. They’d had their own case, wanted any leads he had. That was how he’d gotten the files around the Asset and his father. Tim had left his mobile number for them. If they’d only left a message here, maybe things had turned out all right for them.

“You have one new message. Message from CALLER ID BLOCKED, October 8th, 12:57 A.M. Press 1 to hear—“

Tim did. And sat there for a moment, waiting for things to make sense.

There were sounds, but no speech. Perhaps someone was breathing. Tim guessed ‘redial’ had gotten hit by accident for this call.

Now there were some thumps, as if furniture was getting thrown around. Finally, some sounds huffed directly in the receiver, inarticulate and staticky. Tim went tense in every muscle. A call from the void? No. Those noises…Tim pictured some kind of _wet_ creature. Not the cryptid from the video, something cruder.

_hrrrr…._

_hrrrrrrrrrgh…_

Something squelching.

_Kkkkkthhhhh….kkkktttthhh…._

Its shifts were wet flesh, a watery bellows.

_Ttttkkkttthhhiiiiimmmm…_

It was trying to say his name.

Tim flashed back to the other creature, the Asset. It hadn’t tried to speak, only made marine noises while picking up on human sign language. Tim was grateful to silent Elisa, to wise Hoffstetler, for sparing the creature and the world what he was hearing now. This corrupt, hissing, aural hell.

In the background, somebody human screamed. The receiver crashed, falling. Those screams, again and again. There were more of the muffled crashes, the long-drawn-out sound of something large being dragged. Then, silence.

The message timed out.

“To call back the caller, press 1. To hear this message again --“

Tim slammed the receiver down.

It wasn’t over. It would never be over, as long as he was alive. He was in this besieged world, with its gods and monsters and things-between, one of its random attractors. There’d always be some shit going on.

At least Tim knew what to do now. He checked a number on his computer, picked up the phone. “Hi. You deliver in Baltimore? Great. I need a dozen roses.” On his phone, the message light was still on. He’d have to listen to that horror again to erase it. “Make that three dozen.”


	7. Accessories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short piece: Elisa’s point of view on Chapter 5 of _Deus Brânquia is Merciful._ Who are these scruffy ruffians in her jungle? And does one of them have a connection to Giles?

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, Elisa rarely thought of her past in Baltimore. She barely kept track of time. Why should she? Her dream of bliss with her beloved creature was interrupted so seldom. Mostly by the River People, whose plights wrung her heart. It was easy for the creature to help ease the ones who sought them out. Afterwards, she and the creature would slip back into their divine, timeless-feeling world of water and forest.

But they never been interrupted like this before.

_It’s all about quality accessories, Elisa…they tell the world who you are._

Elisa could hear Giles saying this in her memory. She’d thought she couldn’t be any further from her old life than she was today. Yet a reminder had appeared right here: such strange people, carrying that evocative bag.

One of the things Elisa loved about their new home was the forest’s orchids. Her dear creature, seeing that, had kept one orchid alive for her, then another and another. Now the glade where they came on land most often was rich with flowers, the envy of any florist or Hollywood starlet. The place was so pretty word of it must have reached one of these strangers. For Elisa and the creature had heard a boat arrive, felt clumsy thrashing from the water to the land. They had emerged, subtle and curious, just in time to see an artist setting up an easel.

Slung over one shoulder, the artist wore a bag that was the twin of Giles’ favorite portfolio.  Elisa knew that portfolio well. She’d admired it when she and Giles had first met. Giles had expanded, told her about how he’d saved for it during his New York years. How that sleek accessory, holding his art, had, more than once, opened doors for him, disreputable as he was. By the time Elisa understood what Giles meant by ‘disreputable’ – homosexual – they were fast friends.

Elisa guessed the artist had hired local hoodlums for guards. They couldn’t be further from the uniformed, clean-shaven guards at Occam. These men all wore different clothing. Only one of them wore a hat and a button-down shirt like a man ought to. And all of them had tattoos! The River People had tattoos sometimes. But on these scruffy men, the tattoos looked wrong and wicked, threatening shadows.  Elisa didn’t like the way they looked around so very keenly. If the creature hadn’t been right beside her, she might have been afraid.

The artist was just as rackety: a woman with shortish hair, dressed, to Elisa’s eyes, in men’s clothes beneath a painter’s apron. She was the one who pressed a button on a box. The box must have held a radio because, oh, the music that poured out. It pinned Elisa in place, even as the artist’s guards dispersed.

Beside her, the creature observed all this with a deep _hrrrrrrrrm_. They melted together for a moment’s embrace. Elisa signed to him about the men. The creature slipped off to visit them. They wouldn’t be a problem. They never were.

_Well, yes, there are women who are…disreputable, like me. But, Elisa, they get trouble from the cops, and how. Especially the ones where you doubt they’ve got their three items of women’s clothing…_

Elisa had no doubt this woman artist was “disreputable.” With her tall figure and blonde hair, she might’ve looked like a pulp-novel cover if her face hadn't been harrowed with misery. Elisa had caught her whispering to one of the men in English. Trouble from the cops, Elisa decided, bad enough that she’d had to leave America.

The artist set up a palette and got to work. Heedlessly, she chucked the portfolio just like Giles’ one at the base of the easel. Elisa’s eyes filled with tears when she smelled the oil paints, remembering Giles. The artist’s sway before the easel was irregular. Perhaps, like Giles, she drank more than she should.

But she had marvelous taste in music. Elisa’s absolute favorite song in the world began to play. The artist was moved by it, too. She paused, her dry lips parting. Her eyes glossed with tears before she covered them with one hand.  Suddenly, Elisa knew: wherever she was from, she’d left somebody behind. She had been having these intuitive flashes more and more. It was like sharing thoughts with the creature, but with other beings.

Slowly, so slowly, Elisa crept around the glade’s edge to see from another angle. She couldn’t help being curious about the artist’s work. Her eyes, made so clear and beautiful by the creature, saw every detail. Unfortunately. The art was…well, maybe it was a sketch. She was glad Giles wasn’t there to say, “It’s a bit shit, I’m afraid,” because she wouldn’t be able to deny it.

Elisa stepped on a branch. It flipped up and rustled some leaves.  Worse, this happened in a gap between songs. She went still as could be.

The woman artist turned around. Her glazed wistfulness was incinerated by seething anger. Elisa was suddenly very glad she was hiding. Missing Giles, she had forgotten that somebody who reminded her of Giles might not be a nice person. That other people like Giles hadn’t been very nice to Giles at all.

When the creature came back, they’d take care of this one, too. 

The artist went to either check on one of her guards or visit the bushes. She left all her gear behind her, including that bag.

_With a bag like this, I feel something of a professional. It’ll last me ‘til I die._

That bag!

Had this woman, maybe, been a student or a neighbor of Giles? Would anything inside the bag tell her so? Maybe Giles was on the riverboat that had roused her and the creature.

It was Elisa’s glade, after all, and their jungle. She tiptoed out to see – just for a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _three items of women's clothing_ \- From the 1940s to the end of the 1960s, in many states in the U.S., there were laws against cross-dressing that stated women had to wear at least three items of women’s clothing. These laws sanctioned arrest, harassment, and worse for queer women. 
> 
> I do headcanon that Elisa, for all that she's behind the times here, has reasonable gaydar. She was friends with Giles for years!


	8. One for the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something of an epilogue for _Deus Brânquia is Merciful_. After experiencing Deus Brânquia, it’s not so easy to leave the Amazon basin. Strickland’s daughter has ghosts to lay to rest before she goes.
> 
> Mature genfic - warning for horror and serious alcohol.

Colombia had been a mistake.

Tam was trying to get out of Brazil, fast. Leaving Brazil’s north for Colombia’s south via river had seemed like her simplest route to Ecuador. Her lover, self-deported from the States, was waiting for her there. Tam had thought she’d do better traveling where she could speak her passable Spanish. And the sooner she was out of range of any Brazilian authorities, the better.

But southern Colombia turned out to be _coca_ country. The region’s ravishing jungles and Amazon tributaries were a war zone, soldiers versus drug-running guerillas. It felt very far from the mercy of the gill-god Tam had left behind her: Deus Brânquia.

It had been exactly a month since Tam's life was shattered. Thirty-one days ago, she’d been a respectable professional. Enjoying a well-curated Southern California life with her lover and their friends. A little over-extended financially – working as a consulting archaeologist had its ups and downs. Furious at her brother Tim for something that barely mattered, now. Not after the past had come for her as Richard Strickland’s daughter.

She’d been blackmailed to hunt for a cryptid that had killed her father and defied Occam Aerospace in 1962. Tam had caved and joined the shady government-sponsored hunt. It was 2006, so they couldn’t do much to Tam, even as a lesbian. But after 9/11, in the age of Homeland Security, her Syrian lover Hosna was vulnerable.

Since then, she’d been shanghaied to the Amazon backwaters of Brazil. She’d killed two men. In her resulting haze of guilt and madness, she'd doomed three more. She’d nearly been destroyed by the cryptid, who turned out to be a god in ruthless, timeless harmony with nature. After his mercy, Tam had left him – and his mate, Elisa - alive and free. With a Brazilian co-conspirator, she’d faked her own death, stolen an identity, and gone on the lam.  

All in all, it was not a series of events she’d be sending along to her college alumni magazine.

Still, Tam’s stolen identity had held, so far. That had seemed like the best way to do what she still could. Reunite with her lover, Hosna. Stay alive, herself. Accomplish those without betraying Deus Brânquia.

No court in the world that would prosecute her for the worst crime she’d attempted, hunting down Occam’s former Asset, Deus Brânquia. That had had the blessing of two governments, the United States and Brazil. They had sanctioned any cruelty in the hope of wresting immortality and profit from the god’s flesh.

Tam had seen that Deus Brânquia’s potential matched the government's wildest dreams. The creature could, indeed, heal the ill, inspire growth and rejuvenation. Tam’s renewed mental and physical state proved that. He had even transformed a former Occam cleaning lady, Elisa, to be his ageless aquatic mate. Yet, after experiencing him, Tam knew that leaving Deus Brânquia where he was was what the world needed. Perhaps destiny had brought him clever Elisa to save him from the rest of humanity. For Elisa had understood Tam’s warnings about the present and the future.

Making her way on the gritty edges of travel, Tam had plenty of time to think. Had Deus Brânquia, with his powers, altered her mind-set to suit his needs? If she was delusional, her current line of thinking was still better than the idea that humanity could and should be immortal. That alone had set Deus Brânquia’s hunters at each other’s throats in every way.  Tam, herself, had come to her senses just in time.

Perhaps.

It had all been fine until Tam stopped traveling on rivers yesterday.

Traveling upriver had taken longer than she’d expected. But Tam found she liked the rhythm of it, and the other travelers. Once in a while, she’d see a flash of vivid eyes, someone strong and lively. She'd wonder if they, too, had been healed by Deus Brânquia. Watching the river waters shimmer at night, she still felt connected to her strange encounter with the divine.

So her first step to leave the Amazon for Colombia’s high cold country was a painful shock. Tam had thought she’d wanted a break from people around all the time, from the flat, claustrophobic Amazon basin. That she had a hold on her yearnings around Deus Brânquia and his mate. Instead, when she got into a van that drove away along a paved road, there was a sense of something...torn from her. Lost.

The van had arrived in this actual town, San José del Guaviare, around midday. With Tam's route, it was her one option to transfer back to mainstream transit. The place was grimly quiet, waiting for either soldiers or guerillas. Tam had walked through flat, muddy streets, past wary locals and barely-open brothels and bars, places waiting for men coming out of the jungle.  

When it turned out she’d missed the day’s final bus to Bogota, Tam decided to splurge. She’d spent days on cheap riverboat decks. First came the privacy of a worn, beige hotel room. The water in its shower only got warm. It still felt like delicious luxury.

Tam lingered until she tasted the chlorine in its water. She compared that to being drenched by Deus Brânquia’s rain in his rainforest glade. To her one taste of Deus Brânquia, when his clawed, cold-blooded thumb had brushed her mouth. She realized that, trying to identify the exact fruit Deus Brânquia had tasted like, she was chewing her lips. She shut off the water, and that line of thinking.

Next, she called Hosna’s number in Ecuador. At first, Tam felt lucky, for Hosna answered on the third ring. But after being greeted with a shriek of delight, Hosna’s first words stopped Tam’s heart. “Congratulations. You’re officially dead in America.”

“That soon? Guess all those bribes in Brazil worked.”

“And me! Such a chance to shaft the American government. They stole you from me, and now I steal you back. Oh, you should have heard my tears on the phone...” As Hosna exulted, Tam felt hollow. Looking at “her” grave in Brazil had been strange enough. The woman whose name she’d stolen was buried there, instead. Tam had seen her die for Deus Brânquia’s sake.

Tam tuned back in to Hosna’s resilient chatter. Hosna was wrapping up their US financial affairs, with help from Tam’s brother, Tim. The proceeds could get Hosna an investor visa in Ecuador, if she wanted it – and she might. She sounded intrigued by Ecuador’s flower-growing industry. She could hardly wait to surprise Tim with the news Tam was really alive. Tam, on autopilot, said yes, great, awesome to everything.

So, she was dead. Her plan had succeeded. Why did she feel so awful?

Hosna had to press Tam for her travel details. This done, Hosna purred, “I’m eating too many alfajores. Perhaps you have some ideas of how I can work them off?”

Tam did. Too many of them, short-circuiting each other. Her voice thickened, but all she said was, “I’ll be there soon. Once I’m in Bogota, it’ll be just two, maybe three days.”

Hosna sniffed. “Finally. Call me from Bogota. And Cali. And the border.”

Tam echoed her loving goodbye and hung up. And felt the death she had chosen, its vulnerability and loss, weigh her bones.

That led to her third indulgence: venturing out for a bottle of cachaça. The woman at the liquor place, barely looking at Tam in between watching a _telenovela_ , called her _Se ñor_. Tam let it stand. If she had been a man, she’d be able to drink in a strange country, in a public place, and feel safe. As it was, she snitched a few limes off somebody’s tree before going back to her beige box, locking herself in.

She had decided, for one night, to be a miserable loser.

Tam caught herself in the room’s long mirror. Even after her shower, she didn’t have her looks. Her attempt to match her stolen ID, a mediocre dark dye job and a heavy hand with self-tanner, wasn’t doing her any favors. She was still down fifteen pounds, too. Her face showed it the most, hard-lined and haunted. She turned away. She was deeply uncertain how long Hosna would put up with her like this. An impoverished, fugitive disaster.

Tam raided the room’s kitchenette for her drinking session. With idle ease, she spun a tumbler onto the table, stabbed a knife into a cutting board. She had her health, her reflexes: cold comfort. She shifted the table’s chair away from the mirror so she wasn’t directly watching herself get drunk. This was trashy enough.

Tam cracked the seal on the cachaça. Earlier on this trip, she’d planned to bring a bottle of this liquor to her next college reunion. Now she thought of all the people she was dead to, that she’d never see again. She poured a double; added a splash of bottled water; squeezed in half a lime. As the tepid drink touched her lips, she thought of the old toast: _to absent friends_. With that, she sipped. Not bad, really. The liquor's first note, before its heat, was a hint of green sugarcane.

Tam knew well that the ones she’d never see again included Elisa Esposito and Deus Brânquia. She tipped her glass in their Brazilian direction before a second sip. Hopefully, they were either having great sex or, if they were hibernating by now, a great nap. Tam was fifty-three. Both sounded equally appealing. Though it was strange, how much energy Tam had since their encounter. Like she was thirty instead.

She’d spent an hour, maybe, with the gill-god and his mate in their rainforest. At the time, Elisa had fascinated Tam more. Her uncanny change, her gamine grace, her raw emotions: mischief, defiant courage, love. Tam had wanted to protect her, to adore her like a goddess – feelings easy enough for Tam to deflect into thoughts of Hosna. Elisa herself, after learning from Tam what the future was like, had wanted some more protection: not for herself, but for Deus Brânquia. She had asked Tam to stay with them.

What if she had? Let go of civilization and time with them? Tam figured she would’ve been helpful for a few decades before the future ran ahead of her. To keep up with them, she would have had to let Deus Brânquia change her, too, into an amphibious hybrid. She would doubtless have shifted mentally, as well. Elisa was clearly doing that, becoming something _other_ , something more, leaving humanity behind. But in exchange, Tam would have been able to remain in Deus Brânquia’s blissful flow of life.

For, briefly, in his presence, Tam had perceived the world as Deus Brânquia did. His impossible, magnificent, mind-blowing connection with life and time. That was what she had lost. What carved lines of longing in her face, sent vines of yearning to coil around her bones.

For all her fascination, Tam’s flesh had crawled at the idea of being changed. She had clawed her way back to her human identity. But maybe she shouldn’t have. Maybe --

She slammed the rest of the double.

By the time Tam breathed again, her mouth had gone slightly numb. A good start. After a half-tumbler of water, she poured another double, wrenched the other half of the lime into it.

Tam told herself firmly she was not drinking this because of her father. She’d been annoyed to find the tastes they shared as she retraced his path from forty-four years ago. It turned out they both liked _capirinhas_ , that sweetened cachaça drink. Good tailoring. Short, dark-haired women. Fighting to win.

Memory swam. She wished to God her father had had taste in other areas, too. Like not beating her mother. Not committing indigenous genocide. Not torturing Deus Brânquia when he had the god in captivity. As Strickland’s daughter, she’d thought he was mean and demanding to her while spoiling her brother, Timmy. But, looking back, they’d both gotten off lightly.

Others around the Strickland scions hadn’t. They’d had to endure what she and her brother had learned from their father. Callous entitlement, using force to get their way, Tam’s own short, cruel temper. Some of this, too, twined darkly around her thoughts of Hosna, urges to be harsh and taking. This was what Deus Brânquia had confronted her with, her greatest fear: her deep, true, monstrous self. All heightened by the gap between the expectations heaped on her as a child and the person she’d become.

Tam lifted the glass for another swallow. She was, by now, loose enough to vent aloud to the past’s shadows. “The hell did you name us Timmy and Tammy for? Did you think we’d never grow up?”

“Never thought you’d be such a smart-ass, that’s for sure.”

A cold, cold hand landed on her shoulder. Tam went rigid with horror. She glanced to the left. Her shoulder was clasped by a thumb and two fingers spangled with algae. The smell of gangrene, of human rot from that damaged hand, was right next to her face. _Don_ _’_ _t look up,_ she told herself. _Don_ _’_ _t look behind._

Her father’s voice rasped, “You fucked up.”

Tam folded the gutted lime half in her hand, pressed it. Inhaling citrus, she said, “No. I left the sugar out on purpose.”

“You know what I mean.” Fetid breath brushed her cheek as Strickland hissed, “Deus Brânquia.”

Tam shuddered, yet said, “Not making your mistakes seemed like a good idea.”

“You bailed. You could’ve had everything.”

Tam stiffened her neck. She’d thought, after Deus Brânquia, she’d never be this angry again. “Oh my fucking God. You were the one who told me to run. To not be some government creature.”

“You could’ve had _her_.”

Tam would have howled with laughter if it wasn’t so sick, this yearning from beyond the grave deep enough that what she was didn’t matter. Only what she could’ve done. She fortified herself with a swig of cachaça – let him be jealous of that, too – and spat, “It never should have been about having. And if it was, you had somebody else. I do, too.”

She shook his hand off to stand up and shout. “Fuck off. Get the fuck out. Go!”

There was a hard exhale, almost like a monkey’s bark. Tam dared to turn around. Nothing, no-one was there. Whatever had been was...gone. She dared to breathe again.

When she did, she caught tobacco smoke, driving away the gangrene. Someone said, in Spanish, “Nicely done. But you should have kept my silver crucifix. It helps.”

Tam reeled around. There was a figure in front of the long mirror that had been giving Tam double-takes all evening. A woman stood there, like she’d just slid out of it. Tam covered her mouth with her hand. Through a breath of grief and fear, she gasped, “Diosa...”

This second ghost, Diosa Henriquez, looked exactly as she had when she’d been buried. Her dark hair was bobbed to brush her cheekbones. Her figure, in a white suit that had once been Tam's, was markedly feminine, viola-curved hips tightening the trousers, jacket loose around her slender upper body. She carried a red-brown leather bag. In an unearthly touch, a green viper slid its head over Diosa’s heart before sliding up to one shoulder. This elegant apparition smiled.

“Thank you for the clothing. And your bag. And the consecrated burial.” Diosa lifted one of her cigarillos.

Tam remembered that, thinking of grave goods, she'd tucked a fresh pack and a lighter into the leather bag, before handing it over for Diosa's coffin. Tam's father had hunted Deus Brânquia. Diosa's father had been the captain who took him down the Amazon's rivers. Both their daughters had been thrown together on the ill-fated second hunt.

She managed, “I’m sorry I stole...everything. Including your name.”

Diosa still had her sparkle. “Did you not give me everything you had – including yours?”

Tam looked away. “For what it was worth.”

 _“Que_ _jeitinho._ We could have been friends, if life was different. I thought you would be angry with me.”

Tam coiled tight again. “For wanting to kill me?"

"Not wanting. It seemed like the only way..." Diosa - there was no other way to put it - wavered.

Tam inhaled, thinking _no, not yet_. "At least you respected me. Unlike...some of the others.” She admitted, “It wasn’t like I did any better, afterwards.”

Diosa seemed fully present again. “Each of us was trying to stop what our fathers had begun. Whether we knew it then or not.”

“You, um, want a drink?” Tam topped the glass up a little, slid it to the middle of the table.

Diosa picked up the glass. She said, surprised, “It works, from you. _Salud._ ”

Diosa sipped, then explained. “I’m still learning how it is for me, now. What I can do and touch. This is as far as I can go from where I am.”

Tam understood. This edge of the Amazon that was grieving her was Diosa’s limit. “Why can I see you? I’m not _that_ drunk.”

“To die for Deus Brânquia is one thing. To both kill for him and die for him, ah. It does something.” Diosa waved her free hand. A silver ribbon of light followed it for a second. “I both killed and died for Deus Brânquia. And now a new White Lady walks that river.” The viper slid its head back over Diosa’s collarbone. “Nothing lasts forever, not even this. But it will be a long time before I know if I go to heaven or hell. You, yourself...”

Tam said, “I...killed Verdugo, who wanted to kill him. Does that count?”

“In a way. And you die in your own way, also. So, have caution who you talk to now, hm? Who you call.”

Tam thought of her father, also somewhere in between with the dying and the killing and being a general mess. Like her.

Diosa seemed to pluck her thoughts from the air. “Did Yani ever tell you how old she was?” Their indigenous cook, biding her time, waiting to kill any hunters who'd survived Deus Brânquia.

“No. I was curious, but...things were difficult enough.”

Diosa said, “I was curious, too. The way it all ended, very curious. Perhaps someday you’ll ask her again.” Tam nodded. She could take a hint.

Diosa had a second sip. “Where do you count yourself, now? Are you alive or dead?”

“Alive,” Tam said, and blinked to hear herself say it. To feel all its potential. “I'm alive.”

Diosa nodded. “Then we should not speak much longer. Is it true, what they tell me downriver?”

“What do they say?” Tam braced against whatever Diosa had heard about her: gringa, thief, murderer, _corta cabeza_.

“That Deus Brânquia is merciful.”

Tam smiled with relief. “Yes. Watch out for his girlfriend, though.”

Diosa laughed, delighted. “Ah! Another one of us. Yes. I will watch for her.” She tilted the glass for a salute, then a third sip. With that, she gave the glass a spin across the table.

Tam reached out to catch it. When she looked up again, Diosa was gone. Tam was alone again.

Her thoughts swam over the borders where she stood, between life and death, human and that something more, and, damn. It was hard. She hoped she’d remember this when she was sober, to confess it all to Hosna. What she’d gone through, what she wanted, now. The aching intensity of it all. Wise, earthy Hosna had already offered her another way to be lost in connection. She’d turned it down earlier, like the idiot she was. Perhaps they could find their own space in that.

She sipped the drink she'd taken back from the dead woman. It was icy cold, now. The chill it carried cut through to a vegetal note: the slightest hint of Deus Brânquia.

Tam knew the tepid liquor in the bottle would never bring that. Its cane-sugar note had brought Tam something else first. Maybe all this was why her brother, haunted by their father in his own way, had stopped drinking entirely.

For now, she’d finish this one. And wrap up Deus Brânquia style: with a whole lot of water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is set in late 2006 - good news, southern Colombia has calmed down since then.
> 
>  _Alfajores_ = Irresistible cookies filled with thick milk caramel.
> 
>  _Que jeitinho_ = Brazilian Portuguese, what jeitinho; admiration for an attitude that can range from friendly flexibility to breaking/bending the rules.


	9. The Case of the Baltimore Creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hellboy and Abe Sapien find themselves up against a Lovecraftian horror. But when Abe gets mistaken for a creature last seen in 1962 Baltimore, it’s not the end of the world. It might even be the opposite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triple crossover! _Hellboy _meets _Shape of Water_ meets _Lovecraft___. A chunky 10K word genfic. Action, some violence, a cat death reference, and...horror? I can't tell anymore. It's got eldritch buddy cops. Lovecraft revisionism meeting lesbian romance. Hellboy punching monsters. Abe being a crack shot. Guest appearance: Nyarlathotep!  
>  And yeah, it's another [Deus Brânquia is Merciful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15104450) companion piece. That was how I got Hellboy and Abe talking about a Baltimore Creature in the 2000s. A tight parallel with chapter 5, referenced in Chapter 7.  
> 

**Part I: The Baltimore Creature**

At the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, things were quiet for five minutes.

One of the BPRD’s on-site agents stuck his head out of a window. It was a classic, crisp fall evening. The middle of ghost season. The agent sighed, wishing for a break from it all. 2006 had been a hell of a year. He thought about what he could actually have. A cigar. A cold beer. Something else was needed to make those worth savoring. And he went to hunt down the company of a friend.

Hellboy checked the library. No luck. His next stop did better, Abe Sapien’s quarters. “How you doin’, bud?” He’d seen Abe wearing a shirt, earlier: a full-on button-down. Clothing like that on Abe meant the sole certified _icthyo sapiens_ wasn’t happy in his blue amphibian skin.

Sure enough, Abe said, “Melancholy.”

Hellboy wasn’t surprised. The BPRD had just spent weeks _mano-a-mano_ against a plague of frog monsters. The fight against them had been grueling for Abe – not just what he had to do, against creatures like a degraded version of himself, but what he’d learned along the way.

“Feel like breaking something, huh? I could go for a rumble.” Hellboy flexed his shoulders.

Abe stayed where he was, submerged to the waist in a tall tank of water. He looked very Victorian with his thoughtful stance, hands steepled, shirt collar loose around his neck’s ruffled gills. “It’s not that. More that it troubles me to hear, from our recent antagonists, that I may be responsible for the end of the world.”

Hellboy knew, himself, how that could mess you up. “Nuh-uh. That’s me. _I’m_ responsible for the end of the world. The demon Anung ur Rama. Destined to overthrow humanity. Throne waiting in Hell. All that stuff.” He gestured at his red-skinned demon’s body, waved his tail.

Abe sighed. “Whereas I am, allegedly, to found a new race of man that will triumph in the coming world. Like some sort of Antichrist. Which I find difficult to believe, as a fish-man obliged to live in nigh-secrecy. You, at least, have better luck in love.”

“Not this week,” Hellboy grumbled.

Abe gazed beyond his friend. “Why are we here? Instead of…” he waved a hand… “Hellraising. Why do we bother?”

Hellboy bit down on a smile. The idea of upright Abe hellraising, well, he’d pay to see that. Instead, he said, “Hold it off a bit longer, I guess. Not like we can, ya know, settle down with that special someone for a quiet life. Not with mugs like ours. But we hold it off for the folks who can, their pals and kids and the rest.”

Hellboy looked twice at Abe. He’d missed another Victorian touch. “What’s with the gloves?”

“Ah. Keeping records dry.” Abe gestured one rubber-clad hand towards a desk with a laptop and gray boxes of print files. “I’ve been looking through the files around…anyone like me, truly. The frog monsters. The Ogdru Hem. Innsmouth. The Baltimore Creature.”

Hellboy frowned, hearing the monsters Abe was holding himself up against. “What’s that last one?”

“Quite the oddball incident from 1962. An amphibian man was captured by a government think tank. Brought from the heart of the Brazilian rainforest to a laboratory in Baltimore.”

“Huh,” Hellboy said. “Why’d I never meet him?”

“This was not BPRD. Occam Aerospace Research, rather: a group tighter with military intelligence. Occam ended rather explosively in 1985, twenty-one years ago. While neither of us were impressed by what BPRD’s scientists wanted to do to me, when I was first discovered…”

Hellboy ground his teeth. “The goddamn experiments.”

“…that was minor compared to how Occam treated this Baltimore creature. It was bad enough that a handful of people tried to help him. Not as a cult or cabal. Simply to help.”

Abe sighed again, more lugubriously. “I don’t know if it’s good to know there are people out there, in the normal world, who might care for something like me. Or if it’s far worse that I haven’t found them.“

Hellboy had a vague memory of a scientist and an artist, in the late 70s, evaluating the newly found Abe. Judging him human. Maybe they'd been called in because they remembered a Baltimore creature, too. They’d been decent Joes. But it was 2006, and both those men, starting old age then, would be dead by now. Abe’s melancholy was understandable.

Abe gestured at the records again. “It’s all over there. Feel free to peruse. There’s a distinct resemblance between that creature and myself.”

Hellboy slid some of the papers around with his left hand. “Hey, I know that mug.” He picked up a photograph, frowning. “Richard goddamn Strickland. With me on a gig in Russia, 1959. He was some general’s scorched-earth man. Didn’t know you could be that much of an asshole and not get court martialled. ’Mazing what you get away with, when you’ve got a human face.” He fumbled up a dossier. “He was married with kids? There’s no justice.”

“The Baltimore creature killed Strickland.”

Hellboy chuckled. “Did he? I like him already. Lemme find a pic of the creature.”

“There’s art,” Abe said.

So there was. Its large sheets were stacked neatly, rolling inwards on themselves after being shipped in a poster tube. Very carefully, Hellboy used his right fist of stone as a paperweight to unroll the length of the sheets.

His jaw dropped. “Shit! Holy flaming shitballs! This thing’s your prehistoric ancestor or something. Got the gills going on.” Hellboy looked back at Abe – really looked. Thirty-something years on, he saw what the artist and scientist had meant when they agreed together that Abe was far more human. It wasn’t that the creature in the art was less than human. The artist had captured, in every line, that it was something _other._

Abe reflected, “The creature couldn’t talk. It did master some sign language. One could say that made him more of a monster than me. But perhaps its manifest inhumanity made it easier for humans – for people - to relate to it.”

Hellboy had the uncomfortable feeling he was right. The artworks supported that. Mostly. “Man, this art. This is…it’s real art. Look at this one with the dame!”

Abe finally laughed.

Hellboy flourished the drawing. He had Abe’s words in mind _: people who might care for something like me._ “She’s one of your types, isn’t she? You like ‘em more ballet-dancer.”

With a wry smile, Abe said, “She looks rather taken, there. Unfortunately, the lady was shot and killed in the proceedings. That image seems to be a graceful memorial.” Another one, dead. The whole set was in the past, like a lot of good things.

Damn it, now he was getting all morbid, too. It was time for serious measures. Hellboy said, “I could go for some Mexican food. You up for some Mexican?”

Before Abe could reply, the room’s doors opened. Abe stood up in his tank. “Miss Giarocco.”

Hellboy turned, smiled at the pleasant new agent. “Carla. Hey.”

“Hi guys! Hey, Hellboy, I’ve got you here as my backup for an urgent call-out in Southern California.”

Hellboy said, “The good news is, this means _good_ Mexican food. What’s the bad news?”

Carla handed him another set of files.

Hellboy skimmed his way through the first page. When he read the name that was making this high risk, he yelped. “Hosna Al-Hazred? AL-HAZRED? How’s this been under the radar?” Her picture was one possible reason. She had the kind of face that made men’s IQs drop. Her Mediterranean beauty reminded Hellboy, unsettlingly, of the time he’d gotten drunk in Mexico and woken up married.

Carla said, “She snuck into the US back in 1984. Back then, nobody paid much attention to her name, or her home country being Syria. She’s kept her head down, working for an archaeology consultant – also her lover – for twenty-two years.”  

Hellboy turned to Abe. “Another case with an archaeologist. You owe me five dollars.” He asked Carla, “Who is he? Do we know the poor sap?”

Carla cleared her throat. “You might have heard of the _woman._ Tamara Caldwell?” Carla shifted the files to a print-out of a web page, a photo of a striking blonde. “Her birth name was different – Tammy Strickland.”

“Curious. Weren’t we just mentioning a Strickland?” Abe asked.

Hellboy shrugged. After his assumption before, he said, “I got nothin’.” Despite the odd coincidence.

Carla went on. “A week ago, Al-Hazred showed up for an immigration interview. Someone had warned Immigration about her. Immigration stalled her and forwarded an alert to us. Since then, her lover hasn’t been seen. Instead, Al-Hazred is emptying their shared bank accounts.”

“Sounds rather suspicious,” Abe said.

Hellboy shook his head. “Maybe someone outlived their usefulness. Or the stars aligned for the blood sacrifice.” _Ghost season_ , he thought again.

“Surveillance says Al-Hazred’s packing with intent, and she’s just bought a one-way ticket to Ecuador. Tomorrow morning. That’s why this got escalated.”

 “I’m afraid I need an explanation about ‘Al-Hazred’,” Abe said. “Though what you say makes me believe I will not enjoy it.”

Hellboy swept some of the papers aside and sat on the table. “Hard to keep track, ain’t it? You’ve got your eldritch gods from beyond the stars. Some are the Ogdru Jahad and their spawn, the Ogdru Hem. Others are…other. Older ones. A lot of what humans know about them all, Al-Hazred is one of the names that unlocked it.”

“In the seventh century, the Middle East was getting a head start on the European Renaissance. Al-Hazred was one of its artist-scientist-alchemist types. When he wasn’t writing bad poetry he was unearthing – at times, literally – those eldritch gods.”

“Unfortunately for us, his notes were good as his poetry was bad. He wrote the _Al-Azif._ May not ring a bell unless I give the book the name it got when it was translated. _The Necronomicon_.”

Abe inhaled through his sharp teeth, an animal hiss of fear. Carla’s eyes mirrored that. She said, “We got warned about that even in standard intelligence. There’s a lot of cults out there today. They do a lot more damage to – to existence than they would if there was no _Necronomicon_.”

Hellboy went on. “Somebody fell for the bad poetry, ‘cause there were Al-Hazred descendants. They kept a tight hold on the lore and their tribe. The twentieth century thinned them out a lot. But they’re still around.”

Abe said, “I can see why one of those descendants is a cause for concern. Particularly with recent increases in…activity that threatens existence. Does the lady have a copy of the family’s book?”

Carla said, “We have no idea. The whole thing’s messy. Whoever tipped off Immigraton also asked the FBI to case her place and watch her. But Hosna’s been sticking close to home.”

“If she did take something from the family library, it’s trouble if she’s good with it – and worse trouble if she’s not,” Hellboy said. “Guess that’s why it’s me. I’ll do what I can for you.”

Carla perked up. “I can tell you I’m going because, well, Hosna is a woman. But we don’t have a lot of women to send out.” Hellboy rumbled in wordless agreement. Carla was too new for this, he thought: but there was no arguing about the relative lack of women in the BPRD.

Abe had a similar thought, from a different angle. “Curious how women don’t go in as a rule for dark world-ending paranormal plots.”  

They both looked at Abe. Hellboy mused, “You were just in SoCal, weren’t you.”

“Yes. Heaven forbid that this is involved with the frog monsters.” Abe smoothly lifted himself out of his tank. “Perhaps my Southern California time may be useful in support. Might I join you?”

Hellboy smacked his right palm against the table. “Aw yes. Let’s bring it. SoCal, here we come. Then we’ll find you two the best nachos you’ve ever had.” Hellboy paused. “Still can’t believe a damn Al-Hazred slipped through the cracks. How did that happen?” 

**Part II: The Goat of Al-Hazred**

Hosna had made it happen for herself.

She remembered the day she had decided: October 10th, 1980.

It had begun with her being distracted by the muezzin’s call outside. His musical cry was summoning the faithful of Damascus to prayer. Hosna did not stop what she was doing. The Al-Hazreds had always been indifferent Moslems. It did draw her glance to the room’s one thin, high window, to note that it was sunny outside.

She should have felt honored to limn her own copy of the _Al-Azif_ at the desk of her ancestor, Ahmed Al-Hazred. Instead, the work was dull and inky, tedious when she had been at university classes all week. Getting exactly the right spot of blood on each page was tiresome.

When her pages for the day were done, she took them to her father. He let her into his study, though he was not alone. Hosna carefully did not glance at the man with him. Even when they both began to talk about her.

“See what a beauty she is, a rose of Damascus. My seventh child. Consecrated to Shub-Niggurath as a sacred brood-goat at her very birth.” Hosna’s small hands curled to fists.

The visitor was less admiring. “Her figure is heavy. Also, goats are stubborn.”

Her father laughed this off. “Would you breed sheep or leaders? Her children will be fighters, like my six sons. And her seventh child will be a sorcerer of sorcerors.” Seven children, whether she wished it or not.

Under her long lashes, Hosna gave the man one glance. Despite his clear Arabic, he was British, an over-bred rat of a man, more than twice her age. She turned away.  

Regrettably, her father’s visitor approved. “Proud, cold, and modest. As befits a woman. Her education?”

“Of course she has the knowledge of our house of scholars. She is at the local university now. Her English is excellent. All to make her fit for a man of the world in these changing times. Times that herald the Great Change.” He turned to Hosna. “Do they not, my dear?”

“Bring the Great Change, Father _._ ” Hosna accepted his kiss on her forehead, his pat of dismissal.

On her huffy way to the women’s quarters, Hosna lingered along the edge of the household’s courtyard. In the Ancient Quarter of Damascus, this house, Beit Al-Hazred, stood tall. Its courtyard, with its bottomless well, was in shadow most of the day. Hosna could catch some of the sunlight yet, through a stone lattice on the courtyard’s walkway side.

It was a soft, early-autumn afternoon. Music came in from the compound next door. Their vast, sprawling roses, in a second spate of late bloom, spilled fragrance into Beit Al-Hazred’s shadows. Somewhere, a cat meowed. Hosna smiled. She reached outside the stone lattice to pull a rose, a second rose. The petals were soft and fragrant, cool and alive.

Abruptly, Hosna decided. She didn’t want the Great Change – the world’s ending and remaking for the sake of strange gods. She quite liked the world as it was. But, no. This other, horrid fate awaited her. Exile from her beloved home, a marriage she hated already, this world’s end in a generation or two. She knew there was no averting this, or her part in it, inside Beit Al-Hazred.

Hosna’s mother, by her lights, spoiled and pampered Hosna. But she would not spare her daughter. Not with power at stake and the Great Change at hand. _Do you know how fortunate you are? To marry a man, have human children? In America, sorcerers mate their daughters to monsters!_ A monster, a man – no difference when she had no choice. Especially vexing when, at university, she was realizing what she might prefer to choose, instead.

The roses in her hand, Hosna changed course for the depths of the house. In a sunless corridor, Hosna slid open a vast door. The cavernous, intricate room behind it was their household’s dark shrine to a thousand old gods.

She stepped up to the crowded, layered shelves. Gazing on the chunk of mineral iron, studded with red gems, that represented Shub-Niggurath, her nostrils flared with defiance. Hosna turned, instead, to a smaller statue, a bust from the southern Nile. One half of the face was handsome. The other was unspeakable.

Hosna lit a burner of heavy incense before this god. Her mind called, silently, to its avatar, one of the younger, more human creatures in the dread pantheon before her. _Nyarlathotep! Sower of chaos! Trickster! Dark son!_ This one, out of any of them, had some regard for humanity’s small affairs. If the whim struck, they could be generous. Provided you were prepared to deal with a gift that had two edges, yours and the god’s.

She sweetened the fire with the roses, petal by petal. With them, she poured her eighteen-year-old wishes from her mind, with such intensity her fingers tingled. If she must be exiled, let her say how. Get her out of here, yes, but away from those who would use her. Free her from child-bearing. Let her be swept away to a new life of joy by someone tall, good looking, rich – Arabian – no, French – no, an American! That would show her mother.

The heap of rose petals smoldered. Hosna held her breath until a brighter spark kindled amidst them. It sent up two tendrils of smoke, spiraling around each other. It was as good an omen as she could hope for.

Ten minutes later, Hosna was where she ought to be, in the women’s quarters. The servant’s lounge there had a television. Several maids, her old nurse Meme, and the chief cook were waiting. Meme said, “ _Ya Hosna!_ Now we hear what really happens!” She did not mean any of the dark dealings upstairs. They wanted her to translate the TV show that had all of Damascus transfixed: _Dallas_. Hosna had settled in happily, to decide which of the glamorous, long-legged _Dallas_ women she adored the most that day...

She remembered the day it happened: October 13th, 1984.

Hosna had been sitting in the courtyard at a tourist’s restaurant, ignoring the food for the woman across the table. Tall, good looking, long-legged, American.

The woman, an archaeologist, had asked Hosna’s university for help verifying the provenance of certain medieval texts. Hosna had been assigned to work with her. That was more proper than setting a male student to spend long hours with an unmarried Western woman. After one look at the woman, Hosna had decided she was going to make their time together improper, herself. Why not? It would not be her first affair of this kind. And the noose of her life was drawing tight around her.

They were supposed to be saying goodbye. The American's farewell started out as self-absorbed chatter. “This went so well, and I couldn’t have done it without you. My boss back in the States–she’ll be retiring on a high note. For me, it’s time to do what I’ve been thinking about. Dip into the family trust fund, get a place of my own with some office space, and be a consultant in my own right. Maybe in California. The climate’s like it is here, and socially… What do you think?”

“It sounds perfect, Tamara,” Hosna sighed. The entire affair had been, in every way. Whispering translations in Tam’s ear for hours. Brushing her lips close one moment, stroking Tam’s blonde hair out of the way the next. Their soaring tension, paired with long, confessional conversations. The first time they stole an afternoon to fall into each other’s arms. Yes, perfect, up until Hosna had to admit she had fallen in love. So much so that she was barely jealous to think of Tam enjoying the life she described. Maybe the Great Change wouldn’t be that destructive in California.

Tam went on. “The trust fund – Mom’s second husband is the one with money. Her first husband was my father. Richard Strickland. He, well, he was a real piece of work.” Tam’s face hardened. “A military man. A real stickler for discipline. Cruel. He’s dead, but, believe me, when you say your family is difficult, I understand. I truly do.”

Hosna was only half-listening. She needed to get over her misery and beg this woman to help her get out of the country. Through her weakness or Nyarlathotep’s, this was as good a chance as she was going to get. She delayed the ruin of her pride by reaching for the water carafe. Tam went for it at the same time. Their fingers brushed. Tam snatched her hand back like she’d been burned. Hosna bit her lower lip. Perhaps, as some travelers did, Tam had moved on in spirit before leaving in body.

“Hosna – I…” Tam muttered under her breath, in English. “I’m going to be _that_ lesbian. My therapist is going to kill me.”

When Tam spoke again, in Arabic once more, she trapped Hosna’s hand against the carafe with her own. Her cold blue eyes were alight. “Leave with me. I know it’s crazy. I know you’ve just started your Master’s. But the idea of you in some arranged marriage you hate, for some sect that doesn't even have a name - it’s not right. You could stay with me for a while. You wouldn’t have to do anything you didn’t want. Though if you did want, I – this is coming out all wrong. It sounds like chaos – ”

Hosna slid her hand out from under Tam’s to place it on top. She had to say _yes_ five times before Tam really took it in.

From that instant, Hosna’s life was, indeed, delicious chaos. Leaving Beit Al-Hazred nearly empty-handed the next day, only her university backpack with two additions, one being her own passport. The first plane flight at Tam’s side, both of them rigid and tense. The second flight, draped shamelessly over each other, in hysterics at their success. The unreality of America, like all the TV shows rolled into one. Meeting people, new things and places, being in love – this was what it was to be alive, instead of waiting.

It was all more perfection until that most American of holidays, Thanksgiving. Hosna, despite wearing two sweaters against the cold, was prepared to be charmed by everything about Tam’s family. Their somber house full of antiques, cheered by a Christmas tree to be decorated the next day. Tam’s mother and stepfather, good-looking and bewildered; her cozy stepsister, a best friend in waiting.

Like a real friend, she warned them. “Listen, Tim’s had a rough year. Somebody died at work – he’s with the FBI, Hosna – take it easy on him, won’t you, Tam?”

Tam snorted. “When don’t I? He’s my little brother. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

When Tam did, that was the end of it. Hosna took in that shattered man, his hollow eyes. Her fingers tingled: she tasted ink and blood: and she knew. This man, linked to her now, was touched by one of the dark gods she’d left behind her. It was a chain’s jerk, pulling her back into reality.  Telling her she’d run to that chain’s full length, but that she was not free. Not in this world. Perhaps no-one was.

Hosna had reached inside a little cross-body purse Tam had given her. And, for luck and warding, she had tapped the second thing she’d taken from Beit Al-Hazred. The ivory covers of her own _Al-Azif_.

Now, Hosna knew it was coming to an end.

It was late 2006. Hosna had asked the Crawling Chaos for escape with a lover, a new life overseas. It could be said that she’d had it. She had lived in America for twenty-two-and-some years, her entire lifetime when she’d fled. This generation and a half of California dreaming at Tam’s side had not been enough. Especially after the past week’s horrors.

Waiting to find out what was happening, Hosna shuffled a tarot deck, again and again. Always the same disturbing cards for the absent Tam, whatever their order: the ruined Tower, the Lovers, and Death. Always the same cards for herself: the Moon, the Chariot, and the Devil. She didn’t need the cards to tell her it was time to run, again. She’d felt her luck draining away like sand in an hourglass, taking her humanity with it.

This was why, at three in the morning, Hosna was contemplating the last thing to get into her car. It was the only ugly item in their exquisite mid-century living room, a vast dog crate. Tam’s borzoi bitch, the dog of Tam’s childhood dreams, lounged inside it. The animal, Falada, was three feet high at the shoulder, eighty pounds of lanky bones and white fur.

“Come,” Hosna said, quietly. Falada whimpered. Hosna’s contradiction was stressing her half-cup of brains. It was night, most of the lights off. She was a good dog. A good dog should be in her crate at night.

Hosna glared at her, then checked the time. Finally, she could call the East Coast. She dropped into an Eames chair and dialled Tam’s brother.

“Morning, Tim!” Hosna forced herself to be bright. “I’m sorry to call you so early!” It was six A.M. for him in Baltimore.

“Tam is overseas for work very suddenly with some government group.” The horror had begun when Tam had not returned from a consulting interview at a nearby Air Force base. They had whisked her away immediately. Tam had managed two phone calls on the sly. She’d been strong-armed into a bizarre hunt for a water-god, a being code named Deus Brânquia. Tam’s father, that Strickland, had hauled the creature in last time, to be an asset for the government. They wanted Tam to repeat the deed in Brazil. Hosna’s stomach had dropped when she’d heard. She had asked for a description of the creature, been told of a being half-fish and half-man, with fins and gill-frills, wide animal eyes and little nose, sharp teeth. This left Hosna guessing that one from her youth's dark pantheon was hiding behind the Portuguese name. It did not bode well at all.

“And I find my citizenship application is not successful.” This was what she got for trying to live normally. No luck in any green card lottery, then, during an Immigration interview, being told she was a security risk as a Syrian national. She had left the interview to find Tam on her way to Brazil, blackmailed into it thanks to Hosna’s immigration status. Ever since, a series of strange cars had been parked in front of their house. Yesterday at noon, Hosna had come inside to find her three pet cats neatly killed. She hadn’t left the house since. Their travel agent had couriered Hosna’s plane ticket to the door. Hosna had turned the house lights out at ten, normally, to pack in dimness, for the good it did.

“I need to leave America for a while,” probably forever, “and I wanted to send you Tam’s dog.”

Tim asked why, of course. For Hosna, it was the last thing she could do for Tam. For Tim, the hand of the elder gods had cursed him already. She wasn’t dragging him into the shadows: he’d been there all along. And she had a knife to twist. “Because if you say yes I know Tam will forgive you anything.”

A woman’s voice murmured, _who is it?_ Hosna knew it well: Tam’s stepsister. In bed with Tam’s brother. Hosna had expected Tim to go mad at some point. This disruptive, quasi-incestuous passion counted. It had been a last flicker of luck that, with this in mind, Hosna had defended the pair of them six days ago.  Before she really needed their help.

“Hi Sarah! How are you two enjoying your Satanic union? Planning any demon spawn? Yes, I am a laugh riot. Yes, immigration problems. It is a terrible time to be Middle Eastern. But…you will take the dog? Oh, thank you. Oh, that would be so helpful. Yes, the usual account. You are always so kind. Enh! There are worse things, as I tried to tell Tam.” Hosna’s skin crawled to think of them.

She hung up with a little relief. Better, Tam’s dog had emerged from her crate. The dog suddenly began to pace and whine, disturbed. Hosna’s skin tightened again. “What is it, beast? Is someone here?”

As she spoke, every light in the house switched on. The wide-screen TV flicked to life, too, though it showed nothing but static.

Hosna spun the chair around. In the shadow between the fireplace and a picture window, she caught sight of a tall figure. Hosna knew that white pantsuit, the confident cant of that stance. She leapt up, delighted. “Darling! You’re back – I didn’t hear you, I was on the…”

The figure turned.

Hosna covered her mouth. That was not Hosna’s lover. It could not be.  Not with that unspeakable face, that aura like a poisonous power station, making the air throb.   

Hosna clenched the back of the Eames chair to keep from falling to her knees. She gasped the name that filled her mind, unbidden. “Nyarlathotep.”

“In the flesh,” the being hissed. Its crackling voice made the house lights dip. “In some flesh, at any rate.”

“My god – why – “

Nyarlathotep’s laughter warped the air. The god’s visage, above the white-suited body, changed like spun television channels. It flickered to her lover’s smile, to a smear of teeth and more teeth, a normal Syrian man, a stunning Nubian, the seething abomination again, all edged with static.

Why ask why? Why did the Crawling Chaos do anything? Hosna was an Al-Hazred, not some groveling cultist. She would question this power like a sorcerer should. “The woman you gave me. What have you done to her?”

The vile visage roiled, amused. “To your leman? Nothing.”

Hosna shook with fear and anger. Anger won. She cried, “I asked you for help! Instead, you gave me those Stricklands. Stained with murder and incest! Cursed and claimed by your filthy rival, Dagon!” For who else could Strickland’s gill-god be?

“Are you humans ever otherwise? Nor is it the hand of Dagon on her tribe. No, they are claimed by some elemental swampling, who wants our opposite. All unknowing.”  

 _Deus Brânquia_ , Hosna thought. She inhaled to damn herself. “Let him keep the rest of them. And bring her back!”

Nyarlathotep’s voice deepened. “Much as the chaos you wrought amused me, she is beyond us. These little gods of earth will stake their claim. But be consoled. Shub-Niggurath awaits you still.”

Hosna went cold. For she could still bear children. More, her lifetime’s respite had placed her in this time and place. Seven could be forced on her in painful succession, with today’s technology. And technology, in all its variety, was one of the barbed gifts of Nyarlathotep.

Screaming without words, Hosna swept a bronze sculpture off a coffee table, flung it at the faithless abomination. Laughing at her madness, the god blinked away. Not even a maggot kept the sculpture from shattering the window.

As the last shards of glass tinkled down, Hosna’s knees gave out at last. She rested her forehead against the chair back, fingers clawed into its arms. Something cold and wet touched her ear. She whirled around with a shriek. But it was only the dog, licking her ear, whimpering. Falada had soiled a carpet, but she had not run.  

Hosna found herself laughing wildly, too. “You’re good for something, after all.” She seized the dog’s collar, punted the dog crate out of the way. “Come on, beast. We’re going.”

There was nothing else to do.  Besides, if that gill-god out there, this Deus Brânquia, was no name of Dagon, no ally of Nyarlathotep nor Niggurath…maybe there was some hope. More, perhaps, than she’d ever dreamed.

Hosna heard raised voices outside. She clenched with new fear. First, she had to survive leaving this house.   

**Part III: American Monsters**

In the small hours in Southern California, Hellboy was already pissed off. He and Abe were stuck in the back of an SUV borrowed from the FBI. Carla was outside, grilling their local FBI team about their residential street stakeout. He heard them without the earpiece Carla had provided. She was snapping. “What did you kill her cats for?”

“Hadda do something. She goes out walking two, three times a day. When she went out, we went in.”

His jittery partner said, “Al-Hazred’s all witchy, right? That’s why you’re here. Cats, they’re her familiars, right? She’s just...swooping around in robes in there, casting spells with cards all day!”

Abe whispered, “Actual levitation? Or simply being dramatic?”

Hellboy said, “Can’t tell thanks to these morons.” They both peered up at the house, one of a cluster of 1960s glass-and-wood perches, its angled gables surreal against the night sky.

Carla, out there, agreed. “Of course she’s not acting normally after what you did. You can’t just kill someone’s pets! Even if they’ve done something against the law. No proof of that, yet.” Hosna being human was making this complicated, by BRPD standards. 

Despite this, the first FBI agent said, “We got the word BPRD does what they want. Off the books.”

Hellboy had had enough. He stuck his upper body out of the SUV. “Giacommo, ma’am. These guys giving you a hard time?” He eyed the local FBI yutzes as their jaws dropped. “They’ll do what you say, right? BPRD does what we want.” Hellboy cracked a few knuckles. “For reasons.”

Before the FBI agents could freak, or Carla could reprimand him for failing to stay out of sight, something happened. Every light in the house they were watching blazed on.

“Shit,” Carla said.

“You do that?” asked the FBI growler.

“Wasn’t me,” Hellboy said. “Nice trick if I could.”

The jittery one yelped, “Something’s wrong! Something’s fucking wrong!”

Hellboy saw Carla look heavenwards, then pause. He kept quiet how easy it was for him to see in the dark. He caught it when Carla went gray, clutching a hand over her heart, then going for her sidearm. He felt it, too. A pulse of malfeasance, static disruption of the soul. The house’s lights dimmed, flared again.

It sent the weaker agent to his knees. “I’m gonna hurl. She’s cursing us in there. We’re all gonna die!“

Carla pulled it together to say, “You two get out of here _now._ You’ve done enough damage. BPRD outranks – “ She didn’t have to finish before one agent shoved the other into their SUV. Hellboy went to her side to watch them peel out.

They were silent together for a long moment. Behind them, the house flickered hellishly a second time. Hellboy said, “Sorry. They prolly think what they’re feeling is me. Abe! It’s not me, is it? I got a good vibe tonight, right?” Abe had a knack for these things.

Abe leaned out, looking green around the gills. “It was a horror. One of the great ones. Focused here, very briefly. But I think it has passed.”

Carla sighed. “Casting spells. Maybe those FBI dopes were right. Is it time to send you in, or – hey. The garage.”

The house’s garage was opening, slowly, a maw of white light. Hellboy put himself in front of Carla. It was less than halfway open before the light resolved into two car headlights. The moment that was clear, somebody hit the accelerator. A sporty red car screamed out, curved too hard, and plunged down the street.

Carla cried, “That’s her! Has to be, driving like that up here. Abe, the heck was that in there with her? A ghost, or what? It was just big and white.”

“It all went too fast, I’m afraid.”

Hellboy was still peering after her. “She’s speeding. That’s gotta count as something wrong.”

“Let’s go!”

Luckily for them, this was semi-rural California, the ridge of mountains between San Jacinto and Palm Beach. Hosna’s house was up a small canyon, at the end of a long residential road. They caught up to a red car at the only T-intersection out, turning right, and followed through lowering darkness.

Hellboy whacked the window as Carla whipped the SUV after her. “I may look like a demon, but damn if you don’t drive like one!”

“That’s what you get after me getting my kid to daycare on time through traffic.” Hellboy and Abe leaned forwards, Hellboy urging Carla to go, go, go, catching Abe trying not to smile. Treasuring the few minutes of this chase being, well, fun.

Nothing was stopping them from racing the red car. The woman they pursued had jinxed away from the main roads to Los Angeles. Instead, she had hopped the high hills for unblocked desert highway.  They followed her uphill, and nearly lost her, until the road’s shift down put gravity on their side again. Both Hellboy and Abe flat-out yelled as Carla whirled them down a series of hairpin turns.

They barely had the red car in sight as they hit another canyon road. This punched straight through a funnel-narrow valley, dark stone and sand, the sides shadowed with chaparral. There were no lights, not from houses or from the road.

“What’s she dragging us out here for? I don’t like it,” Hellboy said.

“I don’t either. But if we’re going to stop her, this is where it’ll happen.” Carla looked in the back. “Abe, can you take shotgun to be shotgun?”

Abe said, “You don’t expect her to fire on us?”

“Can’t drive and shoot,” said Carla, scrunching over the wheel. “Way she’s driving, we’ve got a reason to stop her. If you could take out one of her tires, that’d be good.”

“You lean out the window, I’ll hold you in,” Hellboy said.

Abe handled a borrowed rifle confidently, slotting the stock against his right shoulder, left hand on the trigger. As he leaned out, Hellboy’s left hand gripped Abe’s belt. He let his right hand’s stone drape down, a counterweight. Abe shifted, jolting back as he fired.

One shot. Two. On the third, their prey’s rear tire dropped. Carla hit the brakes of the SUV as Hellboy yanked Abe back in. Ahead, the red car spun off the road, to the right. They couldn’t help cheering. Carla followed, pulling to the side, a good twenty meters back from the red car. Hellboy opened his door, and paused.

They had run Hosna Al-Hazred to ground on a barren curve of canyon floor. Her sports car’s Xenon headlights were still blazing, white light turning the canyon’s stone and sand into a moonscape. There was no sound besides the ticking of her overheated car engine, and the thin moan of a breeze through the chaparral.

Hellboy thought about where the first Al-Hazred had stolen magic: from the world’s largest desert, the Empty Quarter.  His stone fist went heavy. He coughed. “Carla. I got a bad feeling. How about you let me go, first.”

The hard light carved Carla’s face into toughness. “I have to ask her for her ID and a talk. If she’s even alive...but come with me.” They eased forwards.

The near-silence carried the snap of a car door. Carla began, “Hosna’s out...wait...what is she?”

Hellboy peered into the night. Against the blinding whiteness of the car lights, a silhouette had four legs. It was a voluptuous woman in the front, with a mane of hair streaming in the breeze. Behind that stretched an animal’s haunches and plumed tail. As Hellboy took this in, the chimera split. The lights now framed a woman and some uncanny, deep-chested predator.

A voice shrilled, “Beast. Go! Run!” The woman might have thrown something. The creature by her side launched into the night. Alone, she turned to face the approaching pair.

Carla cupped her hands around her mouth to help her voice carry. “Ma’am, we’re here from the government, a branch called the BPRD. We’d like to ask you some questions about some recent events.” This was absolutely textbook.

They were close enough that they could see Hosna was dressed in red. Hellboy realized that meant she could see him, too, for she raised an arm to shield herself, shrieking, “You stand with the devil!”

Carla said, calmly, “Ma’am, I know how this looks. But he’s a federal employee.”

Hosna had gone rigid, dropping her arms, clenching her fists. “I’m not surprised in the least! Is that what killed my cats?”

Hellboy winced. “I didn’t do it!”

She laughed three notes, edgy and despairing. “So there’s more than one thing worse than you!” Hellboy opened his mouth, and shut it. Frightened humans could be as bad as demons. Could be worse.

Hosna continued. “Leave me alone!”

Carla inhaled. “Ma’am, we can’t do that.” She elbowed Hellboy. “Over to you.” It was his turn. However far it went.

Hellboy saw Hosna reaching into a little handbag. He didn’t blink. Normal pistols didn’t do much to him. He called, “Listen, Al-Hazred! Can you just do what the nice lady says or you find out what this not-so-nice fella does?”

Something terrible lit up the area where the woman stood. Hosna seemed, at first, to be holding a brick. Maybe it was a box? You couldn’t open a brick. Maybe it was something else. A brick wouldn’t blossom with luminous writing, radiating ghastly purple light.

Hellboy bellowed, “Looks like you’ve got an overdue library book there! Hand it over before things get rough. You hear me, Al-Haz?”

“Al-Haz is some hillbilly! Not my family of a thousand years. Bloody American devil!”  Hosna inhaled, not to curse Hellboy furtner, but for a singing, despairing cry. _Meded!_

Hellboy understood it as she called: _help me, be evoked for me._ He expected it to be the start of an incantation he didn’t plan to give her time to finish. But with the one word, there was one gesture, Hosna’s arm streaking down. This released an awful flash of light, white and purple and wrong, and –

the world was torn –

The flash lasted only as long as it took to rip a book’s page.

Hellboy spun around to see what that rift in reality had released. Seemingly, nothing. But the wind picked up. Unlike most winds, it was hot. It sent sand against them, a horizontal scour. Two meters back, Carla cried in pain, protecting her eyes. Hellboy saw that she had gone gray again.

He said to her, “I dunno what’s going to go down. But get back in the car.”

Carla coughed against flying sand. “Her creature, her thing’s run back – ”

From the corner of his eye, Hellboy caught a white streak dashing. “Gotcha. Get in the car now!”

He saw Carla stagger back as the wind slammed them both.

The gale bowed Hellboy forwards, coiling around his feet. Pebbles and small stones scathed in its circle now, raising bleeding hail in a blinding cloud. He was hemmed in by his own private dust devil. The wind’s whip turned his trenchcoat into bondage before stripping it away. Everything about it drove him forwards, closer to the Xenon headlights. He dug his hooves into the dry earth and roared defiance.

Whatever fired the furnace-blast failed, at that, spinning up and away. 

Hosna said, “Bloody hell.” For one instant, Hellboy was face to face with her. Her creature, wavering behind her, was revealed as a very strange dog. Hellboy had to look down to take Hosna in: for all her curves, the woman was petite. Beneath her tangled mane, her large eyes were blown out with excitement and horror. A frightened human.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Hellboy began.

She spat, “No, that is for your masters. The men who summoned you here.”

He began to protest – and realized he couldn’t. “Arright, the situation’s not great, but if you – ”

The mere suggestion that she cooperate made her cry out in panic again, opening that flare of purple light in her hands. Hellboy shielded his eyes against more white-and-purple awfulness, opening beside them.

Again, the rift lasted only as long as it took Hosna to rip a book’s page. That was enough time for something to tumble through the aperture.

This was a seething, globular mass, sleeking into six thick legs and hooves. Multiple mouths opened in the black lump of its body. This monster, wider and taller than the SUV, spun itself to view the world through random eyes. Its first step on this earth was to buck back, kicking Hosna’s car over with a sickening crunch of metal.

Hellboy saw her appalled, felt himself grin. “If you’re giving this thing orders, Al-Haz, you’re not doing a real good job!”

As Hosna glared, it rocked towards Hellboy, maws snapping.

“I take it back! Your kid’s a fast learner! Good thing my ol’ man set me up for this playdate,” he said. And he swung his right hand, the Fist of Doom.

The punch took its right side. Hellboy felt internal bones, some sphere of ribs, cracking. It was bowled away. But it had its summoner’s stubbornness, for it shook its whole upper body and leapt at him again, hooves flailing.

Hellboy ducked beneath the clumsy thing for a left punch, in the middle of its belly. It bucked away with a hideous squeal. He whipped out his massive pistol, the Samaritan, and fired into one of its maws. The thing stopped and bawled, spitting broken teeth.

“Arright. Progress.”

“Six o’clock! Abe incoming!”

Hellboy spared a glance. “Am I glad to see you plus a rifle. Pick a target, any target!”

As the thing uttered bleating screams and arced onto its rear legs, Abe chose. He shot a point on its left rear leg. It came down hard, spinning and roaring, chasing its own agony. That gave it a perfect turn into Hellboy’s punch. Which sent the thing bashing into Hosna’s car again. This time, it didn’t get up.

“Are you all right?” Abe spun around. “Where is she?”

Hellboy said, “Dunno. Hey, you know how evoking shit usually takes time? Like, at least as long as it takes to get coffee?” Hellboy fumbled bullets into the Samaritan, clacked it shut.

Abe, concentrating on his own reload, only said, “Yes…”

“Bad news: the Al-Hazreds figured out a shortcut.”

“Well, they have had a thousand years.”

They heard a hoarse scream. _Meded! Meded! Meded!_

There was a third awful flash, from behind the overturned car.

“Aaaaand she just used it. Get ready for something bad.”

This one rolled out from behind the car. The new thing had left the legs behind for tentacles, eyes and mouths for general pulsating radiance. It seemed to hate the dry, stony ground, arcing its slimy mass upwards to pause on the hooved beast’s body. Hellboy groused, “Aw, man. One of those Jell-O kinda things. Where’s Liz when we need her?”

“Firing!” Abe shot one of its pulsating spots. That only seemed to make it more irritated. It arced their way. Hellboy saw that, as it left the hooved thing behind, its former perch was now half-digested. He emptied the Samaritan into the approaching mass. It didn’t even slow down as it spiraled tentacles towards them. No – towards Abe.  

Hellboy realized just in time to jerk Abe back and thrust himself forwards. He roared, “Leave the gill guy alone! Have some of this instead!”

Again, he swung. But against this being, all that did was sink his arm into indigo gelatin. Worse, the thing began to slurp him in, wrapping tentacles around him. Where they hit his flesh, they stung. It probably couldn’t digest him, but this was going to –

“She’s here!” Abe called. Hellboy caught Hosna’s red clothing out of the corner of his eye, Abe covering her with the rifle.

Hellboy heard her mix of English and Arabic. “Bloody hell. Back! Back! Off them! Away!” In a move that would have been spectacularly ineffective from anybody else, Hosna swatted tentacles with her tiny handbag. The whole slime-works cowered, simultaneously trying to drag Hellboy off. It was Abe’s turn to pull on Hellboy. Something about his added momentum did the job. Hellboy jerked free, sending himself sprawling.

Hosna cried, “BE GONE!” A fourth awful flash tore existence. But Hellboy forgave it, for it sucked the tentacles in, away. All that remained of that thing was a puddle of dark ichor, and its summoner, clenching the collar of her strange white dog.

Hellboy picked himself up. “What the hell, Al-Haz?”

“You! You have HIM! Deus Brânquia! She found him. She’s done your job. And you - you bloody traitor - ” Hosna spun away from Hellboy to point at Abe. Imperiously, she cried, “Where’s Tam? Where is she?” At the name, the dog barked.

Abe asked, “Where is who?”

“The woman my gods gave to me. The woman you took!”

Hellboy blocked her. “Your missing lover…we’re not the ones who took her.”

“Oh, yes you are!” Hosna pointed at Abe again. “He is the proof. Your gill-god. The river-rival of Dagon, a power against the Great Old Ones. The one men call Deus Brânquia!”

Abe protested, “I don’t know any Deus Brânquia!”

Hellboy had to laugh. “Who’s on first, what’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third!”

They both glared at him. Hellboy pressed a hand down. “Listen, this makes three of us who’re confused, so let’s talk. Just talk. Okay?”

Hosna kept her glare turned up to eleven. “You are here from Occam, are you not?”

“Occam!” Abe’s eyes widened. “I believe she thinks I’m the Baltimore Creature. Of all things!”

Finally, some sense. “After seeing pics of the other gill guy, I’m surprised it took somebody this long.”

Hellboy said, to Hosna, “I’m not up for another round of who’s on first, Al-Haz. Spill. Your _Necronomicon_. Why our group got a tip-off about you. How you know about Occam and the Baltimore creature. Why you ran. Everything.” He sniffed and peered. The remains of the hooved thing were continuing their own decay. “But let’s move back first.”

Hosna told her story, in reverse order. Carla, after a Doom-sized thumbs-up from Hellboy, emerged from the SUV to join them. Eventually, Hosna wrapped with, “I fled Damascus with Tamara, and that was that. We have been together ever since.”

“Nice way to not be a brood goat for Shub-Niggurath. Your archaeologist didn’t suspect anything?”

“I told her! My family tied to an obscure, ancient sect, our sorcerous ancestor, an arranged marriage. She chose to disbelieve much. But she heard what was important.” Hosna actually went misty. She stroked the white dog’s ears. “Tam is like this creature. True-hearted. Always trying to do right. A pure angel.” At her owner’s name, the dog peered around, then subsided sadly.

Hellboy guessed that Strickland’s daughter didn’t take after him. Carla, fascinated by the white wolfhound, asked, “Is the dog your familiar?”

“No. Simply a very stupid dog. All this beast’s training was for her to come back after she runs.” Hosna’s expression sharpened. “My lover is not stupid. Far from it. But she is completely clueless about spiritual matters. She tells me so herself, she never senses anything.”

Hellboy mused, “I don’t know if that’s good or bad for an archaeologist. But it suited you down to the ground, huh?”

Hosna lifted her chin high. “The love was real. This, I know, and I know why. Because that makes all this more painful now. Such is the work of the Crawling Chaos.”

Carla said, “So everything you did – you were trying to hold off the end of the world.”

“Laudable,” Abe said. “If you were.”

Hellboy met Hosna’s shadowed, knowing eyes. _Maybe you weren’t_ , he thought. _Maybe you were holding off your own personal hell. And maybe I’d give you a pass on that, because of what you asked about when you stopped fighting. That special someone._

Abe seemed to be thinking the same thing. He had slipped next to Hosna to pet the dog, bringing him close to her vibes. When he did, he was lost for a moment, letting the dog lick his webbed hand. Until he said, solemnly, “All quite like the people helping the Baltimore creature.” Hellboy understood: that was Abe’s pass on it, too.

Aloud, Hellboy said, “Let’s not forget there’s a profit-oriented government agency out there disturbing elder elemental gods. When we’re a government agency about not disturbing them.”

Abe flexed up onto his toes. “I believe you were expressing a desire for a ‘rumble’ earlier? I find myself most inclined for fisticuffs against people who would use my avatar as a laboratory experiment.” 

“Any thoughts, Al-Haz?” Hellboy asked.

Hosna turned away from them. “All I want is to send this dog to Baltimore, get on my own plane, and be there in South America when Tam is freed. If that comes to pass.”

“Where’s your plane off to?” Carla asked.

“Ecuador. Very far away from Syria,” Hosna hinted.

Hellboy’s intuition liked the idea of this person being very far away. He met Carla’s eyes: it was her turn. Carla nodded. But she said, “On one condition. She hands over the book.”

Hosna’s face tightened. She let the dog go.

Hellboy said, “No book, no leave. We’re not making any deals around it.”

Carla said, “Our group’s a multi-national, ma’am. Like the United Nations. A clean record would go with you.”

“I expect that would change the moment I spoke to another bloody agency.” Nevertheless, after a moment’s thinking that made her mouth twist, she handed Abe the book. It was the size of a chunky paperback. Abe’s hand sagged, as if it was heavier than a book should be. Perhaps that was its carved ivory covers: or something else.

Abe opened it and peered. “My Arabic is…regrettably non-existent.”

“You have it upside-down.” Hosna turned the book in his hand. “Not only is it Arabic, but medieval, and dialect. You need a scholar to read it, or an Al-Hazred to use it. Try, yourself. Rip a page, as I did.”

“I had better move back.” Ten paces out, Abe opened the book, finding where Hosna had torn pages away. He ripped out the next page.

Nothing happened.

Hosna said, wearily, “Useless, for you. It is bound to my blood. Every page I shred takes its own shred from my soul.” She shuddered.

Abe handed the book to Carla. She recoiled at its touch and tossed it to Hellboy. Held in his Fist of Doom, it was minute. “So you left it alone. Plus whoever’s got this needs you to get anything out of it…” Hellboy fumbled the book open himself. There were times when being a demon came to the fore. To his eyes, the words there unravelled, showing him their meaning. And more. He could feel his hooves sharpen, his horns start to bud, smell his armpits going brimstone. He snapped the book shut. Like the kids today said: _nope nope nope.  
_

He asked Hosna, “If I hurt this, does it hurt you?”

“I do not know.” She turned to Abe, again. “You’re certain you are not Deus Brânquia?”

Abe was trying to shake off the dog, back to lick him some more. “Absolutely positive.”

“It would have been convenient for my prayers. Do what you must.” Hosna folded her arms and closed her eyes.

Hellboy tossed the small, heavy book in the air. On its way down, he gave it a punch with the Fist of Doom. Pages evaporated into a flare of violet light, sucked in by the Fist. The ivory shards of its cover showered down. Hosna said, “Ah!” Hellboy saw her smile. For the first time, she was as beautiful in person as in her photograph.

It was Hellboy who was troubled by an icy tingle in both hands’ fingertips. By the feeling his own apocalypse was now a little closer, a little stronger. He tried to brazen it out, despite Abe’s dark eyes on him.

Carla looked satisfied. She said, “Looks like we’ve got no reason to detain you, ma’am.  Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Hosna glanced at her battered, overturned car. “Perhaps I could trouble you for a ride to the airport.”

They made Los Angeles International Airport by dawn. Hosna said little, in between grooming her tangled hair and keeping the dog from licking Abe to death. Near the airport, they stopped to let Hosna drop the dog with an animal courier. Hellboy took the chance to rib Abe about starting a line of him-flavored dog toys, while handing him a liter of water. Abe drank the whole thing, shaking his head. After that, they dropped Hosna off at LAX proper, between Brutalist concrete and palm trees.

Hellboy and Abe were stuck in the car. Carla helped Hosna with her five suitcases, chatting. The bits that Hellboy could catch seemed to be about designers and bags. Nothing too important. Then again, maybe it was. Hosna was smiling a little. Hellboy watched her brush sand and dog fur from her red coat, apply lipstick, check her phone. Little things that showed this world mattered to her. Good thing, too, if that had left her _Necronomicon_ closed for so long.

Hellboy cracked a window open. He beckoned Hosna over to ask this Southern California resident something important. “You know a decent place for Mexican around here?”

Hosna sniffed. “Leave the airport, westbound. Take the third right. El Gordo’s. They do breakfast. Huevos rancheros, chilaquiles.”

Chilaquiles were the way to have nachos for breakfast. Hellboy pictured a triple order, washed down with a Tecate. “You’re all right, Al-Haz. Call us if they give you shit at Security.”

Hosna’s crimson mouth quirked. “American monsters! Until we meet again.” With that, she pivoted on her heel, following her bags inside.

It wasn’t until Carla asked, “What did she say?” that Hellboy realized Hosna must have spoken in Arabic again.

“Goodbye. Sort of.” The three of them watched Hosna getting her bags weighed, checking in. Hellboy only relaxed after Hosna had her boarding passes and sashayed through the double doors. He asked Carla, “She say anything to you?”

“I asked her if she minded about the book. She said she took it as a sign that she should stick to what she comes up with herself. She likes the results better.”

Hellboy groaned. “I figured as much. One _Necronomicon_ down at a time is better than nothing, I guess.” It was all a reminder that holding off _the_ end of the world and holding off one take on it were two different things.  With that in mind, he said to Abe, “Maybe with this gill god dude out there, the magic’ll happen for you. Meet that special someone. Know what I mean.”

Abe flared his gills before he gave in and smiled. “Provided we dispose of these Occam varlets first.”

Hellboy grinned. “I can tell you’re feeling better ‘cause you’re going Shakespeare on me.”

Carla blinked. “She’s having an altercation in there.”

Hellboy and Abe leaned over. “Where?”

Hosna was immediately inside, talking to someone in a crisp white suit. Hellboy saw their troublemaker give them the finger before flouncing off.

The person in the white suit turned to face them.

Their face -

Abe aspirated. Carla choked. Even Hellboy swallowed at that unspeakable, seething visage.

Abe managed, “That force. Earlier. That was it. Do we fight – or – “

Hellboy snorted. “Ain’t asking that to set me up on a date. How ‘bout you?”

Abe gave him an appalled look.

Carla hit the gas.

Nobody stopped her until the third right past the airport. Hellboy tried. “Hey. Hey! Chilaquiles, she said – breakfast nachos – aw, c’mon, you two!“

White-knuckled at the wheel, Carla still didn’t slow down. Hellboy sighed and leaned back as they passed the turn to El Gordo’s. At least he was in good company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Shape of Water_ : Film and novel canon elements are in all the records Abe and Hellboy examine. Plus Hosna gets a fairly accurate physical description of The Creature from Tam, who, as Strickland's daughter, has had a look at an edited/censored set of those records. 
> 
> _Hellboy and BRPD_ : Coming from a Guillermo del Toro POV, this is mostly movie canon, set between the first and second film. But a lot of the comics canon is in there because it’s good stuff. Plus, comics Abe Sapien is much more of a badass.
> 
> Hellboy’s misbegotten marriage is from the comics, but I’ve left current ship status and orientation ambiguous for Hellboy and Abe. Maybe you’ve got your own ideas! ;D 
> 
> _Lovecraft_ references/inspiration from:  
>  -The Dunwich Horror  
> \- The Shadow Over Innsmouth  
> -Dagon  
> \- Nyarlathotep  
> \- The Rats in the Walls  
> -The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath  
> -The Whisperer in Darkness. “And he shall put on the semblance of man, the waxen mask and the robes that hides, and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock.”
> 
> Thanks for reading! Sometimes I write fic because I can't draw comics. This story was one of those times.


	10. The wrong man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wrong Man - After that momentous night at the quarry and on the docks, Dmitri lives! Giles goes to visit him in the hospital, and finds himself in the grip of another crush on a strong, wicked man. A man who’d kill a guard for the sake of Elisa’s creature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lucky last fill for the _Shape of Water_ fic exchange. This one goes out to Aldebaran – the prompt was “What does Dimitri think, feel, know, deny about his presumed killing of the guard at the gate? The end justifies the means? Collateral damage? For the greater good of science?” Somehow it came out from Giles’ point of view!

They let Giles visit him on Halloween.

It was less than three weeks after all the Events around Elisa and her marine man. Despite all that Giles had done, the feds had released him without charges.  He’d been told he had “friends in high places.” He still didn’t have his van back. It had been impounded, along with half of Giles’ artwork, as “evidence.” So, like Elisa used to, Giles took the bus as far as he could, to walk the rest of the way to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Giles found it a touch sinister, walking along the streets with little ones dressed like ghosts and skeletons, raucous older teens in the mood to make trouble. Even the season’s sweets made Giles hesitate, this year. When he’d bashed that awful Strickland, green candies had tumbled out of one of the man’s pockets as he fell. Funny, the things you remembered.

So much to remember. Giles sighed. He’d been brushed with enchantment, a touch of a fairy tale, when his life overlapped with that marvellous fish-man. If it hadn’t been for Elisa, he would have let it pass him by. It was over, now. The magic was gone, along with Elisa. At least Giles would be able to talk about it with the man he was visiting in a private hospital room: his friend in high places, Dr. Robert Hoffstetler. The man who had preferred to be called Dmitri.

Giles walked in with a breezy, “Hello there,” to freeze like a hare. Dmitri might have walked the Halloween streets as a mummy, he was so embalmed in bandages, one arm in a sling, his neck in a brace.

Without thinking, Giles blurted, “Well, this is terrible, a handsome man like you and this happens and I’m so sorry, so sorry, I – “

Dmitri’s eyes widened behind his glasses. Giles collected himself. He’d been better at doing that, lately, despite everything that had happened. Fired from Klein and Saunders, sneered at by his latest Adonis, rescuing a fish man and losing both him and Elisa in that terrifying night on the docks. With his new composure, Giles said, sad and final, “I am sorry.”

Dmitri lifted himself lightly. “You have nothing to be sorry about. That is why I did what I did.”

Giles wasn’t quite sure what the man meant, but he said, “Thank you.”

From his casque of bandages, Dmitri asked, "Are you well?" Have the authorities given you a difficult time? I did my best to tell them I was responsible for everything serious."

After all he'd gone through, this man was asking how Giles was. It was the first time anyone had done so since Elisa had...been gone. He fought back the urge to take Dimitri’s free hand, damn fool that he was. Oh, he’d always been a sucker for a handsome man. A strong man. Admittedly, lying there pallid in bandages, Dmitri looked like a half-glass of milk. Skim milk, at that. But he remembered Dmitri’s superb command as they’d helped Elisa free the Asset. What Dmitri had done…

Giles had to ask. “When you say everything serious, is it true you killed a man? That – that security guard who stopped me?” The one who had been at Occam’s gate, standing between him and Elisa. Between the creature’s rescue and its death.

Dmitri blinked. “Hm? Oh. Yes.”

“You, ah, you didn’t have to do that for me.”

Dmitri said, wryly, “Please do not be offended. But I did it for a different man.”

“Oh. The - yes, of course.”

Dmitri looked beyond him. “It had to be done. I had already failed to act earlier. You see, I was well prepared to kill a man. I meant to, but – the wrong man died. At least his death was not planned: something of an accident, for me. Though, no doubt, he was a better man than my target earlier that day.” Giles shivered at his tone. Something in Dmitri had been hard enough to kill someone else. And didn't that make his heart beat faster, for hadn't another of Giles' weaknesses always been a _bad_ man?

Dmitri focused back on Giles and confessed, “I had planned to murder Strickland. He was the lynchpin, the driver behind that plan to kill the Devonian. There was a wife, I heard. But if he died at work, she would have a widow’s pension - ” Dmitri's face clouded.

Giles swallowed. “Oh, no, no, don’t, don’t beat yourself up about that. He was a monster.” If that had been Dmitri's intention, his badness had taken him all the way back around to sainthood. For Giles had seen Elisa dissolve into sickened fear when Zelda had told her Strickland had busted them, that he was on the way. Zelda had given him an earful. _He’s mean and violent and desperate. He needs that creature back. He’s had a thing for Elisa. I could see the crazy take him when Brewster told him it was Elisa took the creature. Get them out. Get them both out NOW._ “And he’s dead now anyway.”

Dimitri’s appealing, dark-eyed gaze still held Giles. “They told me how Strickland died: one slash of the Devonian’s claws. With some help from you. Is it true you belaboured Strickland with a baseball bat?”

“It was a two-by-four. Just, you know, construction wood. I had to do something. I mean, Elisa. And. You know.”

Dmitri murmured, “I’m quite jealous.”

“Of me and Elisa? Ah, she and I, there wasn’t – ”

“No, that you beat Strickland. There is satisfaction in knowing it happened. For he deserved it well.” There was a knowing sparkle in Dimitri’s eye, that glint of strength, as he said, “If you ever need anyone else dispatched, I’ll do my best to arrange it. The Americans have asked me to work for them. In Strickland’s stead, in a way: for his spymasters. I shall have some freedom, they inform me. And a license to kill.”

Now Giles was blushing. “Er. Um. Well, I mean… Do you mind if I sit down?” His knees were weak.

“It would be,” Dmitri said, “my very great pleasure if you did.”

He collapsed into a metal chair gratefully. Because maybe the magic was over. But, talking to Dmitri, the adventure definitely was not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dmitri's plan to murder Strickland is right out of the _Shape of Water_ novel.


End file.
